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Tesla Inc. shares were poised to close at their lowest since late July, falling more than 8% in midday trading Friday following the allegations of sexual misconduct lobbed against Chief Executive Elon Musk.
Tesla
TSLA,
stock is down for three straight sessions, with losses of more than 12% over that period, and is looking at weekly losses of more than 17%.
Musk has called the allegations “wild accusations” and “utterly untrue.” Business Insider reported late Thursday that SpaceX paid a flight attendant $250,000 in 2018 to settle sexual-misconduct claims against Musk.
That’s the latest news to rock Tesla’s stock, which also seem to bob up and down in connection with Musk’s plan to buy Twitter Inc.
TWTR,
The EV maker has lost some $342 billion in market capitalization since Musk disclosed his intention to buy the social-media company in mid April.
When Musk tweeted last Friday that the deal for Twitter was “temporarily on hold,” the stock shot up 5%. He later tweeted that he was still committed to the $44 billion deal.
To clinch it, Musk has pieced together about $25.5 billion in debt commitments from Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions, and also some $21 billion in equity commitments, including pledges against his Tesla stake.
Tesla shares have lost 39% this year, compared with losses of about 20% for the S&P 500 index
SPX,
in the same period.
