Elon Musk sends a message to Tesla shareholders, fans
Elon Musk is a serial entrepreneur.
He is responsible for several companies at the same time.
He is involved in The Boring Company, known for its tunnels, and in the company that specializes in artificial intelligence Neuralink. He revived the dream of people living on Mars in the near future with his aerospace company SpaceX, where one of the products has become very popular. This is Starlink, the satellite Internet access service, which has become the unique communication system of the Ukrainian armed forces on the front lines of the war against Russia.
Musk has also just acquired Twitter (TWTR) , the social network he considers the de facto Town Square of our time, for $44 billion. This platform has kept him busy for weeks.
The billionaire wants to use it to create a super app that offers more varied services such as booking a car, shopping, buying a plane ticket, etc. But if the influence of Twitter is undeniable in the public debate, the company is struggling to generate revenue and profits.
Twitter is the new girlfriend
Musk has therefore been working for a few days to find new sources of income. He took controversial measures such as eliminating half of the group’s workforce and increasing the price of Blue, the service subscription by including the ability to authenticate an account.
Musk is also currently trying to retain advertisers who suspend their ads on the platform because they fear it will become a place for hateful, racist and anti-Semitic speech. This fear is due to the fact that Musk defines himself as a “free speech absolute”. In other words, he feels that everything should be said as long as the law is not broken.
So he only has it for Twitter, to the point where people forget that Musk’s real baby is Tesla. The electric car manufacturer is the first farmer with whom Musk established himself as a visionary.
Technoking – his title at Tesla – has pushed the car industry away from polluting vehicles in favor of clean vehicles and autonomous technologies that turn the car into a living room on four wheels.
But Twitter’s attention has raised concerns that CEO Musk is focusing less time on Tesla at a crucial time for the Austin, Texas-based group. The electric carmaker faces stiff competition from Chinese groups and legacy automakers that have all announced billions of dollars in investments in electric vehicles.
To maintain its leadership, Tesla has a packed product roadmap. The company will start production of its semi-truck on 1 December and the start of production of the long-awaited Cybertruck is planned for mid-2023.
“I still do a lot of work”
Since Musk made his $44 billion bid to take over Twitter on April 25, Tesla shares have lost 38% of their value to $207.47. The company that started the year with a market capitalization of $1.12 trillion saw it melt by more than $450 billion. Tesla’s market capitalization is currently at $655.2 billion.
Musk is an important part of Tesla’s success. Investors are convinced that without him, the manufacturer of electric vehicles would not have such an important cachet. They therefore identify Tesla with Musk. It is the founder’s wild promises that justify much of the valuation of Tesla, which produced just under a million cars in 2021, compared to several million for its competitors. But the latter are stock market dwarfs compared to Tesla.
The billionaire is aware of investors’ fears and has therefore just sent them a message with the aim of reassuring them. It all started with a post from a Tesla fan account on Twitter.
“It’s very bullish that while Elon is focused on restructuring Twitter, Tesla is running perfectly fine without him $tsla,” the Twitter user wrote.
Musk was quick to respond: “I’m still working a lot at Tesla! Was in our engineering office in Palo Alto until late Thursday night when I had to see New York,” he said.
The message achieved its intended goal of reassuring fans of the premium electric car maker.
“Elon, @elonmusk please send some pics/tweets about $TSLA next time you’re at any Gaga Factory. Tesla investors love to hear you brag and be involved with Tesla. ♥️” said one Twitter user.
“Tesla driving without Elon is intangible. Either in the foreground or in silence, he works the machine,” another user added.
