“It looks like Musk is preparing for things to stay bad at Twitter for the next year,” said Gene Munster of Loup Ventures after the stock sales became public. “He’s preparing for Twitter to be a money hole.”
Musk, 51, and his financial right-hand man, Jared Birchall, did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
The billionaire’s drastic moves to cut costs — including firing half the staff and later asking some to come back — and overhaul of the platform’s operations have resulted in two tumultuous weeks at the social-media company, with some employees not being entirely clear on whether they are still employed there or not.
The deal has also sparked concern among some Tesla shareholders that the CEO is spreading himself too thin and would have to get rid of even more of his stock.
He’s unloaded about $36 billion worth of shares in the carmaker in the past year — around half of that since he went public with the Twitter buyout plan, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Now the stock is down 53 percent from its peak last year, pushing Musk’s fortune to $179.5 billion from $340 billion at the high, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
