On November 8, Beijing time, before the US stock market, the share price of Tesla, the world's most valuable auto company, fell by about 7%. As of the close, Tesla reported $1162 per share, a drop of 4.84%, and a market value of $1.16 trillion. Based on this calculation, Tesla's market value has evaporated overnight by more than 59 billion US dollars, or about 377 billion yuan.
And the day before, Tesla CEO Elon Musk launched a public opinion survey on social media, asking him whether he should sell 10% (worth 21 billion US dollars, about 130 billion yuan) of Tesla stock. By the end of the voting, nearly 60% of netizens had voted in favor.
In fact, Musk’s comments on social media have repeatedly affected Tesla’s stock price, and investors have also sued it for manipulating its stock price. To this end, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also sued Musk for securities fraud, fined him 20 million US dollars, and restricted the content of Musk’s social media statements.
The US$21 billion "reduction announcement" turned out to be an online post
In the early morning of November 7, Musk, the world’s richest man, suddenly launched a 24-hour poll on social media. He said: “Recently, many people think that unrealized gains are a means of tax avoidance, so I suggest selling 10%. Tesla stocks. Do you support this proposal?” Musk also specifically emphasized: No matter what the outcome, he will “obey the voting results.”
One stone stirred up waves. This special “reduction announcement” of the “big V” with 62.5 million fans aroused the attention of netizens all over the world. As of the end of the voting on November 8, 3.519 million people participated, and nearly 60% of netizens voted in favor.
Investors holding Tesla shares can’t sit still. Based on the stock price at the time, Musk’s holdings of 170.5 million shares in Tesla are worth about $21 billion (approximately $21 billion). (134.4 billion yuan), the impact of such a large amount of shareholding on the stock price can be imagined.
On November 9th, Beijing time, Tesla closed at $1,162 per share, a drop of 4.84%, and its market value was $1.16 trillion, which was $59 billion, or approximately RMB377 billion, down from the close of the previous trading day. Before the market, Tesla's stock price once fell more than 7%.
In addition to the pressure to reduce holdings, Tesla shareholders are also worried that Musk may be held accountable by the SEC for this move. In 2018, Musk was also charged with securities fraud by the SEC for improper remarks on social media. . In the end, after Tesla paid 20 million U.S. dollars, Musk was also fined 20 million U.S. dollars and resigned from Tesla's chairmanship before reaching a settlement with the SEC.
However, some investors believe that according to the terms of the settlement agreement between Musk and the SEC, Musk’s social media statements must be approved by Tesla’s designated information disclosure or securities advisers. Therefore, even if Tesla's stock price plummets, Musk's actions may not constitute a violation.
As of press time, neither Tesla nor the US SEC have commented on this.
The United States intends to levy a "rich tax", and the world's richest man can't afford it
According to data from the Forbes rich list, as of November 8 before the US stock market opened, Musk's personal net worth was as high as 318 billion U.S. dollars. He is veritably the richest man in the world, 115 billion more than the second-ranked Amazon founder Bezos. Dollar.
However, most of the assets that support Musk's strong net worth come from the stocks of the listed company Tesla and the options of the unlisted space exploration company Space X.
In 2018, Tesla's extraordinary shareholders meeting approved a compensation plan for Musk for the next 10 years. According to the agreement, Musk does not have any wages or bonuses within the company, and his income will be linked to Tesla's market value and business performance. Only when Tesla's market value reaches the standard can the corresponding option reward be unlocked.
Therefore, although Musk’s total compensation at Tesla in 2020 is zero, he ranks first in the world’s highest-income CEO with an annual income of US$6.68 billion. And as the market value of Tesla continues to rise, with the help of unlocking more Tesla option rewards, Musk has become the highest-paid CEO in the United States for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2020.
Among them, Musk obtained 22.8 million Tesla stock options in 2012, with an exercise price of only $6.24 per share. As of the close of November 5, Tesla's stock price closed at $1222.09 per share, which means that his total stock income is close to $28 billion. These options will expire in August next year. In order to exercise these stocks, Musk needs to pay 54.1% taxes on this income. Based on the current stock price, the tax amount will exceed 15 billion US dollars.
And because of the limited time for executives of listed companies to sell stocks, Musk may want to control the time interval for selling stocks to two quarters. Some analysts and tax experts previously predicted that Musk will begin selling shares in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Musk said when he attended the Code Technology Conference in September this year: "I have a large number of options that will expire early next year, so... a lot of options need to be sold in the fourth quarter because I have to sell, otherwise they will expire. ."
In addition, Musk also criticized a recent US proposal for billionaire income tax. A key point of the proposal is to impose a tax on the “unrealized gains” of assets held by about 700 billionaires in the United States, that is, to conduct annual valuations on the assets of billionaires, regardless of whether they sell assets or not. Tax on the proceeds. According to this proposal, Musk may have to pay 50 billion U.S. dollars (about 320 billion yuan) in taxes within 5 years.
He said on social media: "I don't get cash wages or bonuses from anywhere. I only have stocks, so the only way I personally pay taxes is to sell stocks."
Coincidentally, Besso, the founder of Amazon, who is next to Musk's wealth. Sri Lanka has already reduced its holdings of US$1.3 billion worth of Amazon stock on November 5th. Together with the US$2 billion reduction earlier this year, Bezos has cashed out about US$10 billion of Amazon’s stock this year. Although Bezos previously promised to donate US$2 billion through the Bezos Earth Fund at the Climate Conference to help restore the natural landscape and improve the food supply system, such a large-scale reduction still caused the market's imagination.
Has repeatedly caused huge stock price fluctuations due to improper speeches
Although Musk has good reasons to reduce Tesla's shares, his "reduction announcement" on social media still caused investor dissatisfaction. Some netizens said in a post that Musk did not consider the possible negative impact on other shareholders. Tesla shareholders hope that Musk can do what is best for the company instead of only doing what is best for him.
In fact, with the help of social media, Musk has attracted a large number of fans in the United States and around the world, and his speech on social media has already had a very large influence. Musk himself is also very aware of his huge influence. He often uses huge traffic to market himself, but he also often creates some phenomenon-level communication phenomena and causes serious consequences.
In 2018, Musk was charged with securities fraud by the SEC for publishing a private tweet about Tesla's privatization. After the SEC's investigation, it was believed that Musk did not discuss specific transaction terms with any potential financing partners, and wrote a series of false and misleading tweets privately, which helped Tesla's stock price soar by more than 6% on August 7, causing serious problems. The market is chaotic.
In the end, Tesla paid US$20 million for this, and Musk paid the price of being fined US$20 million and resigning as chairman of Tesla before reaching a settlement with the SEC.
However, there are still many incidents affecting the company's stock price after Musk's speech. In 2020, he said that Tesla was overvalued and even declared to sell his assets, which subsequently caused Tesla's market value to evaporate by $14.9 billion. Since then, Musk has repeatedly spoken on social media to affect Tesla's stock price, and has even been sued by investors for manipulating the stock price.
In addition, Musk has repeatedly used social media to influence the price of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Since December last year, he has frequently reposted content about Bitcoin, and there are many contradictions among them. First, I said that Bitcoin is my own safe vocabulary, and later I said that I was just joking. Subsequently, Musk publicly consulted Mike Thaler, CEO of Microstrategy, a listed company that had bought a large amount of Bitcoin on Twitter, and he wanted to know the possibility of converting the "large transactions" on Tesla's balance sheet into Bitcoin. .
Xiao Yi, Chief Photographer of China Economic Weekly | Photo
A month later, Musk updated his Twitter information to "#bitcoin", which caused many big Vs to follow suit and imitate. A later study showed that Musk's behavior pushed the price of Bitcoin up by 18.99%. Since then, Musk has expressed his support for Bitcoin everywhere, and announced in February this year that Tesla has invested 1.5 billion US dollars in Bitcoin.
In May of this year, Musk announced on social media: "Tesla stopped using Bitcoin to buy auto products because of concerns that Bitcoin mining and trading will lead to a rapid increase in the consumption of fossil fuels, especially coal. Coal is all fossils. Fuel emissions have the worst impact.”
In addition, Musk also hyped Dogecoin (a virtual currency created to ridicule the value of Bitcoin). His remarks about Dogecoin made some small retail investors in Back and forth between "Heaven" and "Tiantai".
Musk’s performance often caused the price of bitcoin and other virtual currencies to rise and fall, and he was accused by many investors as the manipulator of virtual currencies. Because a word he said on Twitter or a word in an interview can be the cause of a virtual currency's sharp rise or fall.
According to media statistics, Tesla has made the highest profit of $600 million in Bitcoin investment this year, and the company's net profit for the full year of 2020 will only be $721 million. However, it came fast and went fast. By the end of the second and third quarters of this year, Tesla's Bitcoin assets had been impaired for two consecutive quarters.
