Tesla investor calls for share buyback after Musks Twitter deal hurts stocks

By Hyunjoo Jin

SAN FRANCISCO Reuters – Leo KoGuan, a major individual investor in Tesla, on Thursday called on the electric carmaker to buy back shares, after Tesla stocks took a hit from CEO Elon Musks deal to buy Twitter.

The comments came as highprofile Tesla bull Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, on Thursday cut the target share price of Tesla due to China production disruption, and warned of “distraction risks” from Musks Twitter deal.

Tesla shares lost one third of their value since Musk disclosed his stake in Twitter in early April and sold 8.5 billion worth of Tesla stocks in a move seen to help finance his 44billion Twitter deal.

Further hurting stocks is China lockdown measures that dampened Teslas production and an exclusion of Tesla from a widelyfollowed S&P sustainability index.

“Tesla must announce immediately and buy back 5 billion of Tesla shares from its free cash flow this year and 10 billion from its free cash flow next year, without effecting its existing 18 billion cash reserves with ZERO debt,” KoGuan said in a Twitter message to Teslas head of investor relations, Martin Viecha.

Viecha was not immediately available for comment.

Last year, KoGuan claimed in a tweet that he was the third largest individual shareholder of Tesla who owns more Tesla shares than that of ARK Invest and Baron Capital. Viecha at that time said he “confirmed” the claims.

KoGuan previously said he was investing billions in Tesla because he believes in Musk‘s “great vision I share.” He said in March that he was buying more Tesla shares, not selling during the stocks’ dip.

Tesla bull Gary Black, portfolio manager at The Future Fund, told Reuters, “If he Musk could get out of the Twitter deal Teslas stock would go up 10.”