Details: "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," Musk said.
- "I need to sort of sell some stuff just to make sure like, there's like, powder dry that, you know, to account for a worst case scenario ... 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."
- And as Musk started to say he's "somewhat paranoid, having gone through, to really attach," he was cut off by other speakers.
Why it matters: 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. 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.
- Some would-be Tesla owners reportedly canceled their preorders and terminated their car leases after growing tired of Musk's behavior on Twitter and his leadership of Twitter.
- "When you have this much negative information about anything, that's going to affect consumer decision making to some degree," one person in the audio chat noted.
The big picture: At one point, close to 60,000 accounts were shown to have listened in on Thursday concurrently.
- The chat featured several Tesla bulls and enthusiasts, including investor Ross Gerber, who prompted Musk to address his commitment to Tesla.
- "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," said Gerber, referring to the time and attention Musk has piled into Twitter.