- The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, has said he will not sell any more of the electric car company’s stock for about two years.
- Musk said he foresaw the economy would be in a “serious recession”.
- Demand for big-ticket items would be lower.
His comments came after a Tesla stock sell-off deepened on Thursday over worries about softening demand for electric cars and Musk’s distraction with Twitter and his stock sales.
No Sale Of Stocks
“I won’t sell stock until, I don’t know, probably two years from now. Definitely not next year under any circumstances and probably not the year thereafter,” Musk said. Shares of Tesla rose 3% to $129.23 (£107.22) in after-hours trading on Thursday after an 8.9% drop in regular trading hours.
Musk has previously made promises about not selling Tesla stock before subsequently selling it. Last week, Musk disclosed another $3.6bn in stock sales, taking his total near $40bn since late last year and frustrating investors as the company’s shares wallow at more than two-year lows. “I needed to sell some stock to make sure, like, there’s powder dry … to account for a worst-case scenario,” the billionaire said.
He said Tesla’s board was open to a share buyback but that will depend on the scale of a recession. On Thursday, Tesla stocks plunged 9%, after Tesla started to offer deep, $7,500 discounts to US consumers, fuelling investor concerns about softening demand as the economy slows.
Twitter Conundrum
Asked whether he would bring in someone such as the venture capitalist David Sacks to run Twitter to allow him to focus on Tesla, Musk dodged the question and said Twitter was a relatively simple business. [Twitter] is maybe 10% of the complexity of Tesla,” Musk said.
In response to concerns that his political views and controversial comments were alienating some people, he said: “I am not going to sort of suppress my views just to boost the stock price.”
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Source: Theguardian
