Tesla’s stock drove off a cliff after the SolarCity bid was announced

Elon Musk the Tesla CEO and Elon Musk the SolarCity chairman are probably pleased with the former company’s bid to buy the latter.

But Tesla investors aren’t. Shares of the electric vehicle company fell nearly 10 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday following the announcement of the acquisition.

It could just be nerves. The proposed deal allows Tesla to buy up SolarCity’s common stock in exchange for its shares, amounting to about $2.8 billion for Tesla. And it also amounts to some strange accounting, given the management overlap between the two companies.

That math checks out: Musk picked up more shares of SolarCity yesterday, putting his total at 22.2 million shares. Tesla made the SolarCity offer at a range of $26.50 to $28.50 per share. Of course, Musk owns a fair amount of Tesla shares — just north of 27.8 million, or 20.8 percent of the company.

Wary investors have sent Tesla stocks on short free falls in the past, too, after a negative analyst report and a sour recommendation from Consumer Reports.

Elon Musk on colonizing Mars, Tesla, AI and more

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

We're here to shed some clarity

One of our core beliefs here at Vox is that everyone needs and deserves access to the information that helps them understand the world, regardless of whether they can pay for a subscription. With the 2024 election on the horizon, more people are turning to us for clear and balanced explanations of the issues and policies at stake. We’re so grateful that we’re on track to hit 85,000 contributions to the Vox Contributions program before the end of the year, which in turn helps us keep this work free. We need to add 2,500 contributions this month to hit that goal. Will you make a contribution today to help us hit this goal and support our policy coverage? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via