Elon Musk is under siege.
The billionaire entrepreneur has been the target of public attacks for several weeks now by some of Tesla’s major and most vocal retail shareholders.
The more the electric car maker’s stock falls, the more numerous and violent the attacks from these individual shareholders become.
There is one that stands out: it is the Chinese investor Leo KoGuan. KoGuan claims to be Tesla’s third-largest retail shareholder, behind Musk himself and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. (ORCL) – Get a Free Report.
In recent days, KoGuan has been attacking Mask on a daily basis. He went from being a fan boy to the King of Techno, which is Musk’s title at Tesla, as he puts it. (TSLA) – Get a Free Report, to the CEO’s No. 1 competitor. He no longer hesitates to accuse Musk of wanting to destroy the value created at Tesla.
‘If I had known I wouldn’t have invested in Tesla’
It should be noted that the serial entrepreneur has not yet responded to any attack from KoGuan. Tesla reports its fourth quarter 2022 results on January 25. Until then, company executives are required to observe a quiet period as required by stock market legislation. They cannot discuss the elements that may affect the share price.
“I’m 100% on Tesla, I believe in Elon Musk and Tesla,” KoGuan tweeted on Jan. 7. “But it’s killing SH and Tesla. I wouldn’t have invested in Tesla if I’d known.”
“Elon invested ≈200mm but took out $40 billion, Larry invested $1 billion, I invested over $3 billion, I have no choice but to act and speak out. I’m begging you for help!”
KoGuan’s anger and rebellion stemmed from Tesla’s stock market failure. In 2022, Tesla stock lost 65% of its value, translating into a market capitalization of over $600 billion in one year. Tesla’s market value has fallen by more than $1 trillion in early 2022 to $357 billion now.
While Musk has blamed the stock market disaster on macroeconomic factors such as inflation and the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes to combat the European energy crisis, many Tesla shareholders, including KoGuan, see its $44 billion acquisition of Twitter as a big problem.
They claim that Musk has completely left Tesla behind when he looks at social media. Worse, he regularly attacked progressives and Democrats on Twitter, alienating many Tesla buyers.
“We want Elon to come back to Tesla, but with a new hottie called Twitter. Twitter gives him the authority of the ‘dear leader’ he craves to decide who wins, loses and dies,” said KoGuan, who invested about $3 on Jan. 8. billion Tesla shares.
“Blind Cult Fanboys”
KoGuan told a Twitter user who pointed out that Musk had on paper lost $200 billion in his personal fortune due to Tesla’s stock market crash, saying that was not the case.
“No no!” the investor replied. “Because he left Tesla, his capital disappeared! He is the greatest financial genius of our time. He cashed out $40 billion, his investment in Tesla is zero, not zero, minus $39 billion, but 13 owns .4% + acquired 304 million shares. $200 billion lost paper phantom.”
“It’s true,” agreed Ross Gerber, another major Tesla shareholder who has been critical of Musk in recent weeks. “Elon has lost nothing. He’s made over $40 billion. . . .”
KoGuan’s rebellion, and his call for rebellion, has been frowned upon by some Musk fans and members of the Tesla community. The latter defend the tech mogul and accuse the investor of hypocrisy. KoGuan responds by denouncing what he calls the Musk cult.
“Every day you tweet about love and how you respect it,” one Twitter user wrote on KoGuan. “You made fun of yourself when the stock went down. We hope the stock goes down so we can filter out people like you.”
“Dude, I protect blind religious fanboys from themselves,” the investor replied. “I was his blind fan, but not anymore. I can’t save Tesla alone. We need all SH and Institutional fund managers to correct the anomaly of Tesla management. We love Tesla. We don’t love what we love too much; we save.”
He believes it’s time to limit Musk’s powers at Tesla. For him, the Board of Directors should play its role.
“Leo, with all due respect, instead of stirring up rebellion (which will fail), how about working on solutions? ‘fighting’ feels out of place,” a Twitter user who described himself as a fan of Musk tweeted at him.
“I got to both BOD and one last year. We got broken promises. You, Elon’s fangirl, and Gary [Black, another Tesla shareholder] applied for buyback but received silent treatment from the BOD and one,” KoGuan replied.
“A desperate situation calls for desperate action,” he said. “We are hopeless. Doing nothing is not an option!”
BOD stands for Board of Directors. “The One” refers to Mask.
He repeated the same call on January 8.
“I have been communicating with management and board for about 1 year and all I got was nothing or empty promises at best. In fact, from these interactions I learned that Tesla is a one man show company but is no longer a family business. Out of 100,000 is a public company with many employees.”
However, KoGuan plans to remain a major shareholder in Tesla.
“If senior captain Larry Ellison doesn’t buy more Tesla shares, I plan to own about 50 million shares by 2026 to become Tesla’s 2nd largest individual shareholder,” the investor said. “Do I welcome blind religious followers competing with me to own the most shares by 2030?”