Tesla Stock Falls to All-Time Low for Year Amid Musk Twitter Controversies

Tesla stock is plummeting, and critics are placing much of the blame on the increasingly erratic way that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is choosing to helm Twitter.

Musk officially acquired the social media giant for $44 billion in October, with the promise to make the platform a bastion for free speech. However on Thursday, the Twitter CEO inspired outrage after he suspended several prominent journalists without offering up an explanation. Critics say the self-proclaimed free speech absolutist is thin-skinned when it comes to facing his own detractors.

On Friday afternoon, Scott Galloway of New York University's Stern School of Business, seemed to connect the dots between the recent suspensions and the way Musk's other company is performing on Wall Street.

"I'm sure $TSLA's new all-time low for the year has nothing to do with Musk's actions last night," the professor of marketing wrote.

Galloway also tweeted on Friday a chart stating that "Tesla's share price has fallen nearly 50% in the past year." It further states that the company's stock has dropped since Musk's purchase of Twitter.

Galloway tweeted his own caption to the chart: "'I. Hate. Twitter.' --TSLA shareholder."

Galloway isn't the only expert to highlight Musk's Twitter buy as having worked against Tesla. Wedbush Managing Director Dan Ives told Yahoo Finance on Friday that the billionaire's reputation has taken a major hit in recent months.

"Musk has gone from a superhero to Tesla's stock to a villain in the eyes of the Street as the overhang grows with each tweet," Ives said.

Meanwhile, Quartz reported on Thursday that the CEO's personal wealth has also been dwindling as of late, in addition to his stake in Tesla. A new filing with the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) indicates that within the span of two days, December 12 and 14, Musk sold roughly 22 million shares of the company. The shares totaled nearly $3.6 billion.

Musk previously told his social media followers, of which he enjoys around 121.8 million on Twitter, that he didn't have any $TSLA sales planned after April 28.

Some of the electric automaker's investors are reportedly worried about the capricious CEO's overall commitment to Tesla. Some fear that his focus is being pulled in other directions—namely, toward his new Twitter acquisition.

Quartz also reported Thursday that Musk's attention on Twitter has ultimately contributed to him losing his position as the richest person in the world. He's since been replaced on both Bloomberg's and Forbes' lists by Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LVMH, a French luxury group.

Newsweek reached out to representatives for Tesla and Twitter for comment.