Tesla's valuation nosedives alongside Musk's Twitter takeover

pcgamer.com:

This week it was announced that Twitter «has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk», for a deal that will end up being worth about $44 billion. The proposed acquisition would see Twitter become a privately-held company—that is, no pesky shareholders trying to disagree with Elon Musk—and is expected to close this year.

Musk's estimated $240 billion fortune is mostly in Tesla stock, and part of his financing for the Twitter deal is $21 billion of his own money plus a $12.5 billion loan guaranteed against a $62.5 billion chunk (thanks, BBC). However, Musk's share value is already partly leveraged for other commitments. The guy is loaded but he's also on the hook for eye-watering amounts of money that depend on everything continue to go well.

Which has not been a problem for Tesla in recent years: it is now the most valuable car company on the planet, and last week reported a $3.3 billion profit over the first three months of the year. You'd think the investors would be happy but, over the last month, its stock price has been on an un-arrested downward trend. A Tesla share is at the time of writing worth $905 USD: a month ago it would have been worth $1093, around 17% more.

Yesterday saw Tesla stock dive from $998 to $876 a share, a drop that saw the company lose around $125 billion of its market value. It has rallied slightly today up to $905, but the overall decline is happening alongside Musk's Twitter takeover, and questions over where exactly his $21 billion is coming from.

So one explanation is that investors fear a big dive in value if Musk suddenly flogs a load of Tesla stock, and want to get out when the going's good. Another is that Tesla's value has absolutely