Did George Soros Dump Tesla Shares to Spite Elon Musk?

Musk has stirred up a Twitstorm after it was reported that Soros sold his large stake in the electric vehicle giant. But was the Hungarian-born billionaire just cashing in on rising share prices?

Billionaire NGO kingpin George Soros has sparked rumours of a spat with Twitter owner Elon Musk by dumping his entire stake in Tesla Motors.

Reports emerged on Monday that Soros had sold his holding of some 132,000 shares in the electric vehicle maker during the first quarter of the year, apparently cashing in as they soared in value by 68 per cent.

That surge has since subsided — possibly due to Soros' share dump — but the Tesla stock price remains 37 per cent higher than it was a year ago.

Late on Monday night, Musk posted a tweet comparing Soros to X-Men supervillain Magneto — before doubling down and saying the Hungarian tycoon "hates humanity."

Twitter owner Elon Musk says Open Society Foundations boss George Soros "hates humanity" in a tweet on May 16 2023

© Elon Musk/Twitter

The two billionaires may have several reasons for disliking each other, although it is unclear whether the two have ever met.

Ongoing Conflict

Soros is a major supporter of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. His Open Society Foundations organisation funded Ukrainian NGOs involved in the 2014 Euromaidan riots by neo-nazi militias that forced out elected president Viktor Yanukovych. In February this year Musk tweeted that the events were "indeed a coup."

Two weeks before that comment, Musk cut off Ukrainian armed forces' access to his Starlink remote satellite telecoms service, fearing that they had found a way to "weaponize" it and wanting to avoid "escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3."

And in October last year, Musk floated his own framework for a peace settlement in Ukraine, which included Kiev recognising Crimea's overwhelming vote in 2014 to reunite with Russia and giving up its ambition of joining the US-led NATO military alliance — the latter one of Moscow's main conditions for ending hostilities.

Partisan Battles

Musk has drawn fire from US liberals since his private equity buy-out of social media giant Twitter last October, promising more freedom of speech on the platform.

He ordered an overhaul of censorship policies and sacked thousands of staff, prompting alarmist claims that Twitter would soon be overrun by the far-right.

Since then, many high-profile Conservative and "alt-right" commentators who had been suspended had their accounts re-instated, along with those of left-wingers and feminists banned for criticising transgender ideology.

Musk also released the bombshell Twitter files to journalist Matt Taibbi which showed how the company worked with government agencies like the FBI to silence dissenting voices.

Soros is a major contributor of election funds to the Democratic Party, which had previously enjoyed near-hegemony of its ideas on US-based social media — although former Republican president Donald Trump has so far refused to return to Twitter since his banning in January 2020.

Simple Economics?

However, Soros also sold shares in Tesla's competitor Rivian Automotive. That may indicate that he has lost confidence that the trend in electric car sales, driven by government reguulations banning new petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles in the next decade, would continue to rise.

The Hungarian-born billionaire also sold 14.37 per cent of his huge stake in First Horizon Bank, although that still left him with 7.31 million shares.

Attorney David Tawil, co-founder of Pro-Chain Capital, told Sputnik that it was simply "impossible that these things are connected."

"Soros' stake that has been reduced has been documented not because Soros went ahead and volunteered that information," he explained, adding that all major investment funds, Soros' had 45 days from the end of the first quarter on March 31 to release details of its stock holdings.

"So from December 31st, 2022 until through March 31st, 2023, Soros dumped his stock," Tawil noted "In that period of time, January to March 2023, the price of Tesla stock was up 68 per cent. So Soros said, 'Oh, I made a lot of money. Let me go ahead and prudently take a bunch of profits off the table.'"

"For all we know, Soros bought Tesla back. For all we know Soros is shorting," the fund manager conjectured. "I don't know. But at the end of the day, what's happening today has nothing to do with what Soros just reported, which is as of March 31, 2023."