Investors in Tesla have expressed anxiety due to Elon Musk’s late-night tweeting.
Investors in Tesla are concerned about Elon Musk’s ability to concentrate on his duties as CEO of the automobile manufacturing company.
SAN FRANCISCO: As Tesla Inc. battled to scale up Model 3 manufacturing in 2018, Elon Musk worked through the night and slept at the company’s factories in California and Nevada.
Musk declared on Monday that he had spent the entire night working at the San Francisco headquarters of Twitter and that he would continue “working & sleeping here” until the social media platform, which he recently paid $44 billion for, was fixed.
Being a self-described “nano manager,” Musk’s propensity for staying up late to solve problems is well-known. Some Tesla investors are concerned about the billionaire’s ability to concentrate on his work as CEO of the most valuable automaker in the world as a result of his deep dive into Twitter, which came after a drawn-out buyout that he attempted to scrap.
The managing partner of venture capital company Loup Ventures, Gene Munster, predicted that Tesla investors would be dissatisfied. “He’ll definitely spend more time on Twitter than any Tesla investor feels comfortable with,” one Tesla investor said.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters through email. Musk is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday regarding the justification of Tesla’s $56 billion pay deal.
He said in a tweet on Monday that he had Tesla covered and that he will be working there for a portion of this week. Tesla has a plant in Fremont, California, and an office in Palo Alto, California.
Since he revealed he had purchased a position in Twitter in early April, shares of Tesla had fallen over 50%. The pressure has increased as a result of sales of Musk’s own Tesla shares, which have already reached $20 billion since he revealed his Twitter ownership.
Tesla is facing an increasing number of difficulties, including issues with demand in China and a regulatory investigation into the promises it makes about the capabilities of its “Autopilot” driver assistance system in the US.
According to a Reuters calculation, Musk has posted on the platform he bought in October more than two-thirds of the time this month in tweets about his efforts to revive Twitter.
From November 1 to November 15, only 3% of his tweets mentioned Tesla, a significant decrease from the average of over 16% during the preceding eight months.
Munster predicted that Twitter will dominate Musk’s attention for the ensuing six to twelve months, noting that Tesla was a more mature organization than in the past and less dependent on Musk in the short term.
Musk recently said that after purchasing Twitter, his workload has greatly increased.
He remarked via video link to a business conference in Indonesia on Monday, “I have too much work on my plate,” adding that he was working “from sunrise to night seven days a week.”
Earlier this month, Musk said of his aerospace company, which he also leads, “Once Twitter is set on the proper course, I think it is a far easier thing to manage than SpaceX or Tesla.”
Musk fan and Tesla investor Ross Gerber stated on Tuesday that the company needed to recruit a deputy for its multitasking CEO. “I believe he has at last reached a stage when he is truly pushing himself. They should look for the proper person, in my opinion. And quite frankly, they simply lack that individual.
Little time
Concerns regarding Musk’s dedication to SpaceX and many smaller businesses have been voiced by the Tesla board. According to court documents related to his salary trial, Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm stated in an email from 2018 that the “minimum time” Musk was spending at Tesla was “becoming more and more troublesome.” According to a Tesla stakeholder, the board erred by giving him a $56 billion compensation package without requiring his full-time attention.
Ira Ehrenpreis, a different board member, stated throughout the trial that Musk was paid for results rather than for his time, and Musk echoed this idea in a 2021 deposition. At Tesla’s annual meeting in August, Musk acknowledged his coworkers in response to a query regarding “key-man risk,” stating, “We do have a highly great staff here. Therefore, I believe Tesla would still succeed even if I were abducted by aliens or returned to my own planet, possibly.
Some of Musk’s early investors say they anticipate him to be up for the Twitter challenge because Musk has already proven his sceptics wrong. “We should just be worshipping his feet when you find an entrepreneur that does all that he has done. Tim Draper, a wealthy investor, told Reuters that the man is great.
Others, however, are impatient.
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, a longtime supporter of Tesla, wrote in a note last week that Musk had “managed to achieve what the bears have been trying in vain for years – smash Tesla’s stock.”
For Musk, Ives referred to Twitter as a “albatross,” a “distraction,” and a “money pit.” He claimed that “the Twitter circus display is gradually beginning to affect the impeccable EV brand of Tesla.”
