Since his founder Elon Musk joined Twitter in April, Tesla has lost half of its market value, putting his title as the world's richest person at risk, reducing his net worth by about 70 billion dollars and putting his title as the world's richest person at risk.
On April 13th, the shares of the electric car company traded at $340.79, the day before Twitter revealed in a securities filing that the billionaire had made a hostile bid to buy the social media company for $43.4 billion. Since then, the price of Tesla has plunged 49% to $173.44 141.29, due to concerns about disruptions at one of its factories in Shanghai.
Since April, the Tesla boss has sold $20 billion of shares of Tesla to fund the buyout. According to Reuters, he owns 445 m shares, and the share price decline has reduced the value of the holding from $151 bn to $77 bn.
This means his claim to be the planet's wealthiest person is under threat, with France's Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury group LVMH, snapping at his heels. Share movements caused Arnault to take the top spot on Wednesday.
Musk said of his Twitter takeover: Having a public platform that is massively trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important for the future of civilisation. The shareholders of Tesla worry about how he is able to divide his time between the social media site and his many other ventures, such as the SpaceX, and that Twitter is too much of a distraction.
Musk's bankers are considering replacing some of the $13 billion of high-interest debt he used to buy the platform in October with margin loans backed by Tesla stock, according to Bloomberg.
The billionaire tweeted: When there are macroeconomic risks, it is generally wise to avoid using margin loans on any company, because stocks may move in ways that are decoupled from their long-term potential. He is under pressure to turn around Twitter, which was already struggling before he bought it, making a $221 m net loss last year.
Since the acquisition, Musk has fired about half of Twitter's workforce, roughly 3,700 employees, while hundreds more were resigned. The company has been facing a number of lawsuits over the sackings. This week it came under investigation by city officials in San Francisco after a complaint that the company converted rooms in its headquarters into sleeping quarters.