Elon Musk said during a Twitter Spaces chat Dec. 22 he will not sell any more Tesla (TSLA) shares next year “under any circumstances” in an apparent attempt to appease investor panic over Tesla’s tumbling stock price.
“You have my commitment that I won’t sell stock until probably two years from now. Definitely not next year under any circumstances and you know, probably not the year thereafter,” Musk said during the audio chat attended by nearly 60,000 Twitter users.
Tesla stock ticked up 1 percent today (Dec. 23) on the news. It’s still down nearly 69 percent in 2022.
Many Tesla investors are losing confidence in the electric carmaker as its CEO is preoccupied with running Twitter and unloads millions of Tesla shares. This year so far, Musk has sold $23 billion worth of Tesla shares to fund his $44 billion purchase of Twitter and “save” its business, he told Twitter employees at a meeting in November.
“I need to sort of sell some stuff just to make sure [I have] dry powder to account for a worst case scenario,” Musk said during yesterday’s Twitter Spaces chat.
At an earlier Twitter Spaces event on Dec. 20, Musk predicted Twitter’s cash flow could break even in 2023, suggesting he won’t need to keep cashing out his Tesla shares to fund Twitter’s operation.