Tesla's stock fell 12% in its worst one day decline on Tuesday, November 9 - or $139.44 - as a response to a bizarre Twitter poll by its founder, Elon Musk, asking his followers if he should sell 10% of his holding in the company. His followers voted 'yes'.
While Tuesday's fall follows a 5% decline in the value of stock on Monday, it was also catalysed by comments made by noted hedge fund investor Michael Burry (who predicted the 2008 housing bubble), who said that Musk may want to sell Tesla stock to cover his personal debt.
Although Tesla still retains the tag of being a company worth more than a trillion dollars (a tag it acquired only on October 26), the collective fall bumped off $140 billion in the stock's value. Musk himself is estimated to have lost $50 billion over the two-day fall.
Real-time information shows that Musk is currently the most valuable person in the world at $271 billion.
However, his company's share prices have often been impacted by other such odd tweets by him. His tweets have not only affected equity prices, but also those of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and dogecoin, as his tweets have shown to wield significant influence over them.
Here are 7 instances where his tweets have caused stock and cryptocurrency prices to churn.
1. A poll on Tesla accepting dogecoin
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that is based on a meme and started as a joke, but is subject to serious trade today.
In May this year, Musk tweeted with a similar poll to ask his followers if Tesla should accept dogecoin as payment. This sent the value of the cryptocurrency from 46 cents apiece to 54 cents, a rise of nearly 17%.
2. Improving dogecoin's efficiency
A little after the asking his Twitter followers if Tesla should accept dogecoin, Musk tweeted that he is working with the developers of dogecoin to improve its efficiency. That sent the value of dogecoin soaring more than 22%.
Here's all you need to know about dogecoin. The cryptocurrency has come down from its record highs, and is now trading at near 21 cents apiece.
Also Read: Investing In Dogecoin: A Joke Or Serious Cryptocurrency Option
3. Gamestonk!
In January this year, Musk tweeted 'Gamestonk!' in reference to Gamestop, a company that was at the center of a stock market battle between small retail buyers that used memes and Reddit to egg its price on, and big Wall Street hedge funds that bet against it.
After Musk tweeted this, it sent the price of the stock soaring nearly 69% higher from an opening of $88.56 to an intraday high of $150 on January 27.
4. Tesla owning $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin
In February this year, Tesla said has purchased $1.5 billion of bitcoin, and that the company planned to accept bitcoin as payment in the future.
This sent the price of bitcoin soaring 17% to $44,500 per coin, then a record high. However, two week prior to that, Musk added the description "#bitcoin" to his Twitter bio to raise the prices of bitcoin 20%.
Also Read: Currency With The Public Rose 3 Times Post-Demonetisation: RBI Data
5. Tesla's price being too high
On May 1 last year, Musk tweeted that in his opinion ("IMO", or "in my opinion"), the price of Tesla's stock was too high. Minutes after, the price of Tesla's stock plummeted 10% from $760 to below $700 per share. However, it took only three days for the price to recover.
6. Tesla going private and SEC troubles
In 2018, Musk landed into trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after he tweeted that that he was planning to take Tesla private (which is getting it delisted off a stock exchange by buying outstanding shares from the public) and funding for the same had been secured.
The price he mentioned was $420 - a popular reference to cannabis and stoner culture. Following this, Tesla's price shot up 6%. The SEC charged him with fraud, stating that this tweet was misleading, and that it had caused disruptions in the market.
Musk settled the case with the SEC a week later, paying $40 million in penalties and accepting governance reforms including him stepping down as the chairman of the company.
7. Tesla being bankrupt
As an April Fool's joke in 2018, Musk tweeted that Tesla had gone bankrupt, and that caused Tesla's shares to fall 8% after that.
The timing of tweet was poor, as the company was facing a terrible period.
It had to recall 123,000 of its Model S sedans over a defect. The credit rating agency Moody's had downgrading its credit rating in anticipation of the company raising $2 billion as the company failed to meet production targets. Further, in the week before that, a driver of its semiautonomous Model X using Tesla's autopilot software died in a fatal crash.
The stock price of Tesla is trading $1,020.83, down 0.26% pre-market on the New York Stock Exchange as of publishing this story at 8:07 am eastern time.
Also Read: Explained: Stock Market Price Bands And Circuit Breakers
