Shares of Tesla (TSLA) fell 10%, Musk denies the statement

Shares of Tesla (TSLA) fell as much as 10% today after allegations of sexual abuse against CEO Elon Musk, now called the Elongate scandal, surfaced. Musk has now dismissed the statement and even challenged a friend of the alleged victim who shared the story.

As we reported yesterday, the publication came out a second-hand story about alleged sexual abuse by Mask on board on his private jet.

A friend of the flight attendant told her story after she reportedly signed an NDA and received a $ 250,000 settlement from SpaceX. She claimed that Musk exposed himself and asked for sexual services during the massage he requested on the plane.

Musk commented on the initial report, but initially did not deny the allegation, except to hint that it was politically motivated.

Since then, the CEO has tweeted to more clearly refute the story, calling it “completely untrue.”

He even urged the person who told the story to describe visible marks on his body, such as scars or tattoos that were not public:

This statement did not help Tesla shares, which have been hitting hard lately, but even more so today. Today, Tesla (TSLA) has fallen as much as 10%, and now the stock has fallen to a level we have not seen since June 2021:

It’s hard to link the recent fall directly to the “Elongate scandal,” but Tesla shares have fallen much more today than in the rest of the market, despite no other significant news.

Obviously, this is bad news for all Tesla shareholders, but even more so for Mask, which has about $ 6 billion in its Twitter acquisition deal related to loans secured by its Tesla shares.

Take Electrek

I won’t try to speculate on who is telling the truth here because we just can’t know at the moment, but there is one thing I think is important to clarify.

I see a lot of people saying that Elon was “dead” for announcing the day before the story came out that “political attacks” on him were going to intensify after he called the Democratic Party a “hate party” and said he would vote for a republican.

To be clear, then Insiderwho first reported the story, said they contacted Mask before publishing the story and even gave him more time to comment.

Thus, it is almost certain that he already knew that this story was coming out when he announced that he would vote for the Republican, and predicted that he would face “political attacks.”

I think this is an important difference, but it does not mean that the accusations are also true.

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