Tesla Faces Its Worst Week in 20 Months

Elon Musk’s Tesla stock just closed out its worst week in the last 20 months on Friday, November 12. The company’s worst weeks before Friday were in February and March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic started to ravage markets in the US.

For the week, Tesla shares declined a huge 15.4% after CEO Elon Musk began his plans to sell 10 percent of his holdings during the week. On Friday, the Tesla stock closed down 2.8%. According to financial filings which came out on Friday morning, Musk – who still owns about 167 million shares in the automobile giant – sold stock worth around $5.7 billion this week alone.

The sale of shares was partly to satisfy tax requirements which are related to the profit made on his stock options. Musk had asked his 62.5 million Twitter followers to vote in a poll which would determine the future of his Tesla holdings, before he went ahead to make his sale plan. However, this week’s financial filings revealed that Musk had known that some of his shares were due for sale this week.

However, Tesla shares are still up 46% year to date (the period between the first day of the year and the current date) following a record closing price of $1,229.91 on November 4. In comparison, Ford shares are up around 120%, General Motors shares have gone up close to 51% and Volkswagen AG shares have risen about 66% year to date.

The slump in price of Tesla stock followed a sell-off, where shares were sold off in order to dispose of them. The slump also coincided with a record-breaking IPO in automobile manufacturing for Rivian, a new maker of electric pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. Rivian’s shares rose 5.6% on Friday, taking it up 66.6% since its Wednesday debut.

Rivian raised around $12 billion in its market debut on Wednesday, making it the largest IPO in the world so far. Rivian is now ranked the second most valuable automobile manufacturer in the U.S., behind Tesla.