Elon Musk appeared to backtrack on his plan to buy Twitter for $44 billion, sending the stock crashing on Friday. The bloodbath abated only when Musk said he was still 'committed to the acquisition.'
However, on other fronts he has been knocking up losses. The shares of his flagship company, Tesla, have seen a dramatic erosion ever since Musk announced his intention to acquire Twitter last month.
According to an IANS report, the SpaceX founder has lost a whopping $39 billion in the weeks after he anoounced Twitter takeover.
This happened as investors started dumping Tesla shares on fears that Musk's distractions will cost the company dearly. Twitter is quite unlike any other business, by virtue of its being the object of intense political scrutiny and resultant legal wrangles. Shares in Tesla are down more than 20 percent in the last 30 days and closed at $769 on Friday.
Twitter Market Capitalization
At close on Friday, Twitter's market capitalization stood at $34.458 billion, which is nearly 10 billion less than the price tag put on it by the tech billionaire.
The stock is almost at the level it was when Musk revealed at the beginning of April that he had built up a holding of more than 9 percent in the microblogging company. The stock rose further after he announced a takeover bid later on. All those gains have now been evaporated, draggign Musk back to where he started.
Agrawal Comments
Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal made a series of annoucements about the company's future. He was speaking about the high-profile exits at Twitter. General manager of consumer product Kayvon Beykpour and General manager of revenue Bruce Falck announced their departures, suggesting that lame-duck Agrawal was forced to make executive changes in the run-up to acquisition by Musk.
"We announced changes to our leadership team and operations yesterday. Changes impacting people are always hard. And some have been asking why a "lame-duck" CEO would make these changes if we're getting acquired anyway," Agrawal said in the post.
"The short answer is very simple: While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what's right for Twitter. I'm accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day," he added.
Previously, Agrawal had said he did not plan any layoffs. "We are not planning company-wide layoffs, but leaders will continue making changes to their organizations to improve efficiencies as needed. As always, performance management will continue to be a priority at this time at all levels to ensure we have the strongest teams possible."
