Renesis v Welham on: Musk selling Tesla stock to appease Twitter users

A few days ago, two things happened. One, Kimbal Musk, Elon’s brother, sold over $100m worth of Tesla stock and gave 25,000 shares of Tesla stock (worth around $30m) to charity. And then two, Elon Musk ran a Twitter poll asking users whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock to pay taxes. I was tempted to talk about it here on DT but then I decided not to because I figured it had more to do with finance than cars.

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Elon Musk is selling 10% of his Tesla stock following Twitter poll | DriveTribe

Is he playing us or is this genius?

But then Ben ‘Never-Miss-A-Clickbait-Opportunity’ Welham talked about it so I thought it’d be interesting to do a thing and have a bit of a pub debate about it. We’re gonna ask ourselves three questions and hopefully we can come up with an answer: does it matter? Will Tesla keep growing at this rate? Would Tesla be the same without Musk?

1. Does it matter?

Welham: I absolutely think it matters. Okay, so it may seem utterly pointless to those who aren’t involved in the stock market, but for those who are, this is a pretty huge step in a direction – whether that’s forward or backwards, you decide.

Anyway, Elon selling 10 per cent of his Tesla stock is such a big deal because he owns so much of it, much like his brother. So, if they both sell huge chunks and post about it online, it’s going to affect everyone invested in the company. Since they both sold stock, Tesla has dipped around 15 per cent (Nov 8 – Nov 12) which shows just how impactful it has been.

Renesis: If you own Tesla shares, or operate in the stock market in general, it does. If you don’t, then it probably doesn’t. If you already own and drive a Tesla, or if you’ve ordered one, it still won’t make much of a difference because it’s not like that is going to affect your experience as a customer or make the already troublesome supply chain issue any worse.

However, if you’re in the market for an EV, there’s a strong chance that the price of a new Tesla (as in the actual car) will go up. In fact it already has, and this process can and probably will be, at least to an extent, impacted by Musk’s Twitter-fuelled moves.

2. Will Tesla keep growing at this rate?

Welham: This is an interesting question and my answer isn’t so. This is because nobody knows what will happen unless you’re a billionaire investor and can manipulate the market to your advantage, there isn’t any real way of saying whether Tesla stock will rise or fall.

From my side of things (and this isn’t financial advice) I’d say Tesla will hover for a bit and then maybe climb once new models come out and build quality gets better. But what I really have my eyes on is Rivian at the moment. Watch this space.

Renesis: Tesla is still one of the key players in the EV game and in order for them to lose, one of two things need to happen: either one of the legacy brands manages to kick Tesla out of the market with sales, or one of the up-and-coming start-up brands reinvents the wheel and innovates in a way that makes Tesla products obsolete.

VW certainly has the potential to do that, but as things stand, it’s still a battle and Tesla is more or less winning. Or at least it isn’t losing. Other brands are catching up fast, like Mercedes for example, but in terms of sales, market size and market value, no one has clearly beaten Tesla yet [in the EV market].

As for the new players, Rivian and Lucid both look promising but they’re essentially doing the same thing that Tesla is doing. Rivian, maybe, has the most potential because of the Amazon deal and because they are, de-facto, the first brand that actually delivered electric trucks. Also, Tesla is still the only brand with its own proprietary network of superchargers.

3. Would Tesla be the same without Musk?

Welham: Tesla as a car maker will be exactly the same. Its vehicles are fun/childish, electric, somewhat affordable, and make news headlines. So as a brand, I think they’ll be the same but in a world without Elon, when he inevitably relocates into space, I think some Elon fans will leave but Tesla as a brand will remain strong.

Renesis: I doubt it. It would be different. That’s not to say it would be better or worse, just different. Tesla was not founded by Musk, but he basically revamped it and turned it into a trillion-dollar company.

A different CEO would perhaps be a little less vocal and bombastic on Twitter. But then again a different CEO would maybe keep Tesla superchargers (and patents) private, as opposed to opening them to other brands.

What do you think of Tesla? Will it keep on growing or will it eventually be replaced by other brands? Also, what do you think of this format? If you like it, please let me and Ben know in the comments below, and do feel free to pitch ideas, subjects, topics you want us to have a fight - I mean discuss - about.