Elon Musk is a serial entrepreneur.
He is in charge of several companies at the same time.
He is involved in The Boring Company, known for its tunnels, and in the company specializing in artificial intelligence Neuralink. He revived the dream of humans living on Mars in the near future with his aerospace company SpaceX, one of whose products has become very popular. This is Starlink, the satellite internet access service, which has become the unique communication system of the Ukrainian armed forces on the front line in the war against Russia.
Musk has also just acquired Twitter (TWTR) , the social network he considers the de facto Town Square of our time, for $44 billion. This platform has kept him busy for several weeks.
The billionaire wants to use it to create a Super App offering multiple varied services such as ordering a car, shopping, buying a plane ticket, etc. But if the influence of Twitter is undeniable in the public debate, the firm is struggling to generate revenue and profits.
Twitter Is the New Darling
Musk has therefore been working for a few days to find new sources of income. He took controversial measures such as eliminating half of the group’s workforce and increasing the price of Blue, the service subscription by including the option to authenticate an account.
Musk is also currently trying to retain advertisers who are suspending their ads on the platform because they fear it will become a venue for hateful, racist and anti-Semitic speech. These fears are due to the fact that Musk defines himself as a “free speech absolutist.” In other words, he feels that everything should be said as long as the law is not violated.
So he only has it for Twitter, to the point of making people forget that Musk’s real baby is Tesla. The electric vehicle manufacturer is the first pawn with which Musk established himself as a visionary.
The Technoking — his title at Tesla — has pushed the automotive industry away from polluting vehicles in favor of clean vehicles and autonomous technologies that are turning the car into a living room on four wheels.
But Twitter’s attention has raised concerns that CEO Musk is focusing less time on Tesla at a crucial time for the Austin, Texas-based group. The electric vehicle maker faces stiff competition from Chinese groups and legacy carmakers who have all announced billions of dollars of investment in electric vehicles.
To maintain its leadership, Tesla has a packed product roadmap. The company is due to start production of its Semi truck on Dec. 1 and mid-2023 the start of production of the long-awaited Cybertruck is scheduled.
‘I Still Do a Lot of Work’
Since Musk made his $44 billion bid to take over Twitter on April 25, Tesla shares lost 38% of their value to $207.47. The company which started the year with a market value of $1.12 trillion saw it melt by more than $450 billion. Tesla’s market cap is currently at $655.2 billion.
Musk is an important part of Tesla’s success. Investors are convinced that without him, the manufacturer of electric vehicles would not have such an important cachet. They therefore identify Tesla with Musk. It’s the entrepreneur’s wild promises that justify much of the valuation of Tesla, which produced barely a million vehicles in 2021, compared to several million for its rivals. But the latter are stock market dwarfs compared to Tesla.
The billionaire is aware of investors’ fears and has therefore just sent them a message aimed at reassuring them. It all started with a post from a Tesla fan account on Twitter.
“It’s strongly bullish that while Elon is focused on restructuring Twitter, Tesla is executing perfectly without him $tsla,” the Twitter user posted.
Musk was quick to respond: “I still do a lot of work at Tesla! Was at our Palo Alto engineering office until late Thursday night when I had to redeye to NY,” he said.
The message achieved the intended goal of reassuring fans of the premium electric vehicle manufacturer.
“Elon, @elonmusk please send some pictures/tweets about $TSLA next time you at any Gaga Factory. Tesla investors love to hear you bragging & being involved with Tesla. ♥️” said one Twitter user.
“Tesla running w/o Elon is intangible. Whether in foreground or in quiet, he’s working the machine,” added another user.