What Elon Musk’s Twitter ambitions mean for Tesla, SpaceX
Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian joins the Live show to discuss the expectations for Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, what this means for Tesla and SpaceX, and the outlook for the social media giant.
Video Transcript
- We're sticking with Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO plans to use Tesla stock to complete the Twitter purchase. That sent shares lower. And we are continuing to see some declines. They are down more than 6%. Potential conflicts with Musk also at the helm of both companies, Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian has the very latest for us.
Let's start with the stock move because there's a number of things at play-- concerns about whether, in fact, he could be running both companies, if in fact, that's what he does. Let's not forget SpaceX is also in the mix. And then, there's also the part about his stock.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah. There hasn't been an indication yet whether he needs to sell any more stock to fund this deal. He might have to. We saw the leverage loans and all that, the debt angle for that. But I think you're right. The other concern is, is he stretched too thin across a number of companies, right? Tesla, SpaceX, also talking about the Boring Company and Neuralink. So there's a number of projects he has going on. And the kind of things that he's talking about, with regards to how he wants to change Twitter-- with the potential X factor and making it an--
- Super-app.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: --app for everything-- it's pretty ambitious ambitious. I mean, we're talking about, first of all, overhauling potentially all of management at Twitter, and then trying to kind of spearhead this huge, kind of, transition to what Twitter could become. So we don't even know, yet, what he's going to be at the company. But he's already talking about such grand ambitions-- ambitious plans-- that it might take up a lot of his headspace.
- There's also the argument, I guess, of saying, look, Twitter is not a company where you need to manage supply chains, and parts, and sourcing-- a whole other challenge compared to what you have to do at Tesla. The other concern that really popped up at the beginning of all of this saga, when the announcement first came down he was interested in buying Twitter, was about the potential conflicts of interest. What if, for example, a country like China and the government says we don't like what you put out on Twitter? If you don't censor that, we're going to go after Tesla?
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah. I think-- we talked about this yesterday offline-- I think that's a big deal, a big concern, about what his-- his relation with China is very positive. He was able to build the first factory that's not co-venture with China, in that country. So that's a huge deal. If they come to crack down on Twitter and social media angles, and they say, hey, if you don't do this, we're going to come after you on Tesla, that is a major concern. I don't know if that's going to happen. But we were already seeing Musk can kind of be cavalier with these things.
He was also-- there's an investigation going on internally where he actually had one of his lieutenants acquire this glass meant for automotive products for his personal use, which is kind of not kosher. So he's no-- he's no angel. He's also no stranger to these kinds of things. So I think you're absolutely right, in terms of the different many pots that he has his hand in. Many pots can kind of bite the other companies, right? Maybe there's some issue with SpaceX and Tesla, right? So--
- SpaceX is a big question mark, too, I mean, just given the government involvement and all that.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, exactly.
- Yeah.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: But yeah, I think the big question is the intra-country-esque kind of angle, with regard to China, I think is a big thing to watch, and maybe one thing that maybe regulators look into.
- Yeah. We've been tracking Twitter and Tesla shares in tandem. Deal not closed yet, just a reminder. We're going to be watching that one. Thanks so much for that, Pras.
