Shares of Tesla Inc hit a fresh two-year low in volatile trading on Friday as Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk‘s pledge not to sell his stake in the electric car maker for at least two years did little to reassure investors. Musk has unloaded $40 billion worth of shares in the world’s most valuable automaker since late last year, with the sale of $15 billion worth of shares coming after he made similar pledges in April, in part to finance the acquisition of Twitter.
“If Musk sells another billion or so dollars of stock in the near future and that puts downward pressure on Tesla’s stock price, investors could have a decent case for securities fraud,” said Howard Fischer, a former US Securities and Exchange Commission official. SEC) attorney and partner of the Moses & Singer law firm. SEC rules require public companies and their executives to disclose accurate information that may be material to investors through channels that investors know to monitor. It usually does not specify how companies should do this.
“If it was another CEO of a Fortune 500 company making that statement, the market would be confident that ‘he said so, so he’s not selling,'” said Dennis Dick, chief trader and market structure analyst at Triple D Trading.
Tesla shares are down 64% for the year, in what could be its worst annual performance since going public in 2010, as investors worry that Twitter has taken up most of the billionaire’s time.
Shares were last down 0.6% on Friday after earlier falling as much as 3.5% to their lowest since September 2020. Musk has had problems with the SEC in the past. Musk faced the wrath of the regulator for tweeting about his plan to take Tesla private in 2018 and was forced to step down as the company’s chairman, appoint additional directors and pay $40 million in fines. The SEC also demanded that controls be put in place to oversee Musk’s communications.
“Musk looks rattled, vows not to sell any more shares and floats the idea of a share buyback. Short sellers are firmly in control and retail is very hesitant to buy this dip,” said Edward Moya, chief market analyst at OANDA. Tesla shares have a short interest of about 3.1% of the stock, up 33% since the start of the fourth quarter, according to S3 Partners.
