Billionaire’s Tesla Gamble Cost Him $420 Million in 6 Months
Billionaire Larry Ellison bet big on Elon Musk - to the tune of $1 billion in Dec. 2018. Just six months later, Tesla stock has already cost him $420 million. | Source: AP Photo / Jae C. Hong (i), AP Photo / Ben Margot (ii). Image Edited by CCN.com.
By CCN.com: Elon Musk isn’t the only tech billionaire with a gaping Tesla-shaped dent in his net worth this year. As Tesla’s stock price crashes and burns, Oracle founder Larry Ellison is deep in the red with his massive stake in the company.
World’s 7th-Richest Man Bet $1 Billion on Elon Musk
At Oracle’s analyst meeting last October, Ellison – the world’s seventh-richest man with a net worth of $57.6 billion – disclosed that the electric car company was his second largest investment.
“My second largest investment, I’m not sure how many people know. I’m very close with Elon Musk, and I’m a big investors in Tesla. Tesla had a good day. And I think Tesla has a lot of upside.”
While the Tesla stock price continued its precipitous fall this week, nearly half of Larry Ellison’s equity stake in the high tech automaker has evaporated.
When Ellison joined the company’s board at the end of 2018, he revealed a $1 billion stake in the electric vehicle giant. Today, six months later, it’s worth only $580 million.
Back in December, he credited his friendship with Elon Musk for his decision to make a billion-dollar bet on Tesla. He said :
“I’m very close friends with Elon Musk, and I’m a big investor in Tesla. And so Tesla had a good day. And I think Tesla has a lot of upside. Do you know the most popular car by revenue in the United States over the last three months? The number one car in the United States by revenue. The Tesla Model 3 outsold in revenue — forget about Ford and GM, they weren’t even close — outsold Honda and Toyota.”
Larry Ellison Isn’t Worried About Tesla Stock
The same month Ellison disclosed Tesla was his second largest investment, he also fired back at the relentless barrage of negative publicity swirling around Elon Musk.
At the time, the notorious CEO was tangled up in a number of high-profile scandals as his company burned through investor cash.
His tweet calling a British diver a pedophile for criticizing him was widely panned by the media. Another tweet prematurely claiming he had secured funding to take Tesla private at a specified dollar amount per share triggered an SEC lawsuit.
When he took a puff off Joe Rogan’s joint in a live podcast last year it sounded alarms for multiple organizations, included NASA, which announced an investigation into the stunt.
In remarks to Bloomberg, Ellison thundered with awe of Musk’s tech genius:
“This guy is landing rockets. He’s landing rockets on robot drone wraps in the ocean. And you’re saying he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Well, who else is landing rockets? You ever land a rocket on a robot drone? Who are you?”
