Top Tesla investor has buyer's remorse and says Elon Musk is 'killing' the EV company with stock sales

  • Tesla’s third largest shareholder appeared to show some buyer’s remorse as he criticized Elon Musk’s share sales. 
  • “I am 100% in Tesla bc I believe in Elon Musk and Tesla. But he is killing SH and Tesla. If I knew I wouldn’t invest in Tesla,” Leo KoGuan tweeted.
  • But in a series of weekend tweets, he also said he bought more Tesla stock last week.

Tesla’s third-largest individual shareholder thinks Elon Musk is damaging shareholders and the company through massive sales of personal stock. 

In a series of tweets over the weekend, Leo KoGuan seemed to express some buyer’s remorse but still reaffirmed his commitment to the stock.

“I am 100% in Tesla bc I believe in Elon Musk and Tesla. But he is killing SH and Tesla. If I knew I wouldn’t invest in Tesla. Elon invested ≈$200mm but took out $40B, Larry invested $1B, I invested over $3B, I have no choice but to act and speak out. I cry out to U for help!” KoGuan said on Saturday.

Musk has cashed in nearly $40 billion of Tesla stock since November 2021. Meanwhile, Tesla earned less than $9 billion of net income in the nine months to September 30. Tesla stock lost a staggering 65% in 2022. 

KoGuan’s comments come as Musk draws scrutiny for his focus on his latest role as chief executive at Twitter, the social media company he acquired in October. 

In his tweetstorm over the weekend, he dismissed some of his critics as cult followers and directed his criticism largely at Musk, whom he seems to refer to as “the one.”

“I contacted the board and the one for about 1 year, what I got was nothing or at best only empty promises. Actually, from these interactions I found out Tesla is one man show company but it is no longer a family business. It is a public company with more than 100,000 employees,” added KoGuan, founder and chairman of IT provider SHI International.

He currently sits on roughly 23 million shares as of September 2022, and amassed the majority of the fortune during the pandemic months of 2020.

Despite his criticism of Musk, KoGuan tweeted Friday that he bought 450,000 additional Tesla shares last week and plans to buy a million more.

He remains a fervent supporter of the company and last month said he plans to “invest more $billion bc Tesla will be the biggest company with or without Elon.” 

Also last month, KoGuan said that it may be time for a new CEO, saying Musk has abandoned Tesla. And last week, he suggested Musk was intentionally sending the electric-car maker’s stock lower.