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,
-9.36%
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,
-0.64%
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,
-1.85%
in the same period.