Investors trust Elon Musk less and less. The recent accusation of sexual assault has melted the businessman’s fortune of 10 billion dollars. But, in reality, it has been in bad shape since the beginning of the year, and has only plunged even more rapidly since the stormy takeover attempt by Twitter.
Last Friday, we learned that a flight attendant working for SpaceX filed a complaint in 2016 against Elon Musk for sexual assault. The latter claims that the billionaire would have exposed his penis to her during a massage, in addition to offering to buy her a horse in exchange for sexual favors. To hush up the affair, the company reportedly paid $250,000 to the victim.
For now, it is still difficult to predict where this case will lead. What is certain, however, is that it has greatly cooled investors. In a single day, Elon Musk saw his fortune melt away by just over $10 billion. While the businessman was worth $212 billion last Thursday, he was only worth $201 billion the next day.
Related: Twitter Seeks Ways to Coerce Elon Musk into Takeover
Accused of sexual assault, Elon Musk loses a colossal sum
With its 15% share, it is Tesla’s stock market price that does the most damage to Elon Musk’s portfolio. Indeed, the firm has seen its value drops by 6.4% during the day on Friday. We also remember the survey posted on Twitter by the billionaire which caused him to lose 35 billion dollars.
If this accusation undeniably drives the point home, it appears that the situation has already been at half mast for several months. According to Bloomberg, Elon Musk has already lost $69 billion since last year, again largely as a result of the gradual devaluation of Tesla’s stock.
Predictably, the businessman’s pranks on Twitter aren’t much help. When the takeover was announced, Tesla’s share price fell 12% for the first timeand the stormy situation in which the transaction currently finds itself risks further aggravating the phenomenon.
