Tesla will ‘keep blowing our minds’ shareholder Tencent says

CNBC interview with Tencent CXO David Wallerstein

In an interview with him on CNBC Thursday, Tencent CXO David Wallerstein said that despite Musk's distractions, he's counting on the company "to keep blowing our minds with what they do with technology."

David Wallerstein is the CXO of Tencent, for which he is tasked with investing in emerging technologies.

He said that when Tencent made the investment, "it wasn't so clear that they were going to survive and that EVs were going to actually survive."

Two years later, Tesla shares began to grow dramatically and became one of the world's largest electric car makers with 1.31 million units delivered for the year 2022.

Musk bought Twitter last year, and he also sold a large chunk of his own stock to help finance the deal. Tesla shares fell about 62 percent last year, and investors believe the superbillionaire's love of Twitter is one of the main reasons Tesla shares have depreciated so much this year.

Wallerstein said he still has faith in Tesla despite the distraction.

"Of course, it's hard to focus if a leader is distracted in many companies, and Elon has a lot of projects. I think they're still doing great work," Wallerstein said.

"I would count on them to continue to blow us away with their technology," Wallerstein said.

Tencent, one of the world's largest social media and gaming companies, invested in Tesla in March 2017 through an equity transfer in which Tencent acquired a 5 percent stake, or 8,167,500 shares, for a total price of $1.778 billion, or about $217.67 per share. The price is much lower than Tesla's closing price of $261.50 on March 17, 2017 (the lowest price of $261.20), with a discount ratio of 16.67%.


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John Murphy

John Murphy is the founder of TOPCARS Tesla Aftermarket Accessories, as well as an investor in Tesla and owner of the Model Y. He posts about Tesla news while running the site on a daily basis.

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