Musk Lost $28.5 Billion Just by Talking... Tesla Stock Down 35% This Year

Bitcoin Boast Reputation Worst
China's May Order Volume Halved
Compounded by Chain Recall Crisis

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who once topped Bloomberg's billionaire index, is facing a dire crisis. Tesla vehicle orders in China for May have halved, and a series of recall incidents have caused the stock price to plummet. Musk's personal reputation has also declined due to repeated critical remarks about Bitcoin.

According to Bloomberg on the 3rd (local time), Tesla's stock price closed at $572.84 on the New York Stock Exchange, down 5.33% from the previous day. This is a 35% plunge compared to the year's highest closing price of $883.09 on January 26. As a result, Musk, who once ranked first on Bloomberg's billionaire index, has dropped to third place with assets totaling $160 billion.

The plunge in Tesla's stock price is due to a sharp cooling of investor sentiment as order volumes in the Chinese market, which had driven Tesla's stock price, halved. According to The Information, a U.S. tech industry media outlet, Tesla's orders in April were about 18,000 units, but in May they dropped to around 9,800 units, nearly half. Bloomberg reported that this news "indicates a slowdown in sales in China, one of the most important markets in the automotive industry."

Earlier, the series of recalls caused by bolt tightening defects also fueled the decline in Tesla's stock price. On the 2nd, Tesla announced a recall of nearly 6,000 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles due to bolt tightening defects, followed by two additional recalls related to seatbelt issues.

Moreover, Musk's repeated criticism of Bitcoin on Twitter has backfired. U.S. online economic media Yahoo Finance reported, citing social media marketing firm Awario, that Musk's reputation on Twitter hit a low point after his Bitcoin criticisms.

Awario, which has been tracking Musk's reputation since October last year, announced that in January, positive (16.8%) and negative (16.2%) tweets were similar, but last month, when he posted many cryptocurrency tweets, positive tweets decreased to 14.9% while negative tweets increased to 19.2%. In particular, after Musk announced on the 12th of last month that Tesla would stop accepting Bitcoin for electric vehicle payments, negative tweets about Musk increased.

Ross Gerber, CEO of investment management firm Gerber Kawasaki, which holds Tesla shares, analyzed, "People losing money on Bitcoin are turning their backs on Musk, which ultimately negatively affects Tesla and creates a bad situation for Musk."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.