Elon Musk swears off selling any more Tesla shares until 'probably 2025'

23 December 2022

On Tuesday, December 20, Elon Musk announced that he will step down as Twitter’s new CEO when he finds a replacement he considers adequate. It remains to be seen whether or not that will happen, but whatever happens with Twitter, Musk will still be the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. And on Thursday, December 22, Musk had another announcement: He won’t be selling any more of his Tesla shares for at least another year and a half.

Musk swore off selling any more Tesla stock in 2023 and probably 2024 as well.

The Tesla CEO announced, “I'm not selling any stock for, I don’t know, a, quote, minimum of 18 to 24 months. You can count on me — no stock sales ‘til probably, I don’t know, 2025 or something…. You have my commitment that I won’t sell stock until, I don’t know, probably two years from now. Definitely not next year under any circumstances and, you know, probably not the year thereafter.”

Axios’ Hope King reports that Musk “needs to assure Tesla investors that he's not harming one of his companies to support another.”

“Specifically, he's been trying to reinforce his commitment to Tesla, as he's sold $23 billion worth of Tesla stock in 2022 to ‘save’ Twitter's business,” King explains. “He's offloaded nearly $7 billion after taking over Twitter in late October. Investors have grown increasingly worried about Musk being distracted with running Twitter, as well as about reputation contagion from the saga rubbing off on Tesla.”

Twitter, according to Musk’s critics, has been in a state of chaos since his acquisition of the social media giant was finalized in October. Musk fired some of the company’s top executives, laid off much of the content moderation staff, and has drawn criticism for allowing some far-right MAGA Republicans back onto the platform — including former President Donald Trump and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Moreover, top advertisers have been fleeing Twitter in response to Musk’s decision to reactive the @realdonaldtrump account.

Trump was banned from Twitter following the January 6, 2021 insurrection, but so far, he has yet to accept Musk’s offer to come back and has said that he will continue to use his own Truth Social as his primary social media outlet. Lindell, meanwhile, has used his Twitter account to do the thing that got him banned before: promoting bogus election fraud conspiracy theories.

Tesla shareholders, according to King, like hearing him say that Tesla will be a high priority for him.

Investor Ross Gerber, King reports, told Musk, “I just want you back at Tesla, and I just miss you, Elon.… There’s a huge community of people who want to know.... how long is this going to be.”

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