The share of Tesla, the electric car manufacturer, recorded a decrease during the year 2022, which is about to end, losing 69% of its value until yesterday’s closing, and thus the stock has fallen by more than twice the decline in the Nasdaq index.
According to Arabiya Net, Tesla shares witnessed heavy selling during yesterday's session, to close down by 11%.
Elon Musk's electric car company is days away from closing the worst month, quarter and year ever in its history, as it overtook Meta to become the worst-performing stock in 2022 among the most valuable technology companies.
The latest decline comes after The Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla will continue to halt production for a week at its Shanghai facility, in the face of a new surge of Covid infections within its Chinese workforce.
In turn, Reuters reported that when the Tesla factory in Shanghai reopens in January, it will renew the closure for only 17 days.
Among the major automakers, Ford dropped 46% and General Motors dropped 43%.
Since its initial public offering in 2010, Tesla has only fallen in the one year prior to that, 2016, when the stock fell 11%.
This comes as Twitter drains money and pressures Musk to sell Tesla shares in large quantities.
According to filings in mid-December, Musk sold about 22 million additional shares in Tesla, which were worth about $3.6 billion.
Earlier this year, Musk told his millions of followers on social media that he had no intention of selling any more Tesla shares after April 28.
After his recent sale of shares, Musk said on Twitter Spaces on December 22 that he would not sell any shares for 18 to 24 months.
In a discussion with a Tesla shareholder, Musk blamed Tesla's share price drop on higher interest rates by the Federal Reserve, and tweeted that people would increasingly convert their money from stocks into cash, causing stocks to drop.
His letters did not stop the chain of selling.
Trading volume topped 201 million shares on Tuesday, the second-highest trading volume of the year, according to FactSet, after Dec. 22.
And for the month of December, Tesla fell by 44%, as it is its worst month ever, as it has never fallen by more than 25% in one month.
In the fourth quarter, the stock fell 59%, worse than the 38% drop in the second quarter of this year, which was its worst period ever.
Last week, Tesla expanded rebates in North America to buyers of electric cars.
The discounts came after the automaker offered incentives in mainland China for December auto sales earlier this month, according to CNBC.
Musk lost his title as the world's richest person earlier this month to LVMH President and CEO Bernard Arnault, according to Forbes and Bloomberg's billionaire rankings.
Tesla shares closed on Tuesday at $109.10.
