Enigmatic Messenger Or Troll: Is Elon Musk Alluding To This Date For Another Tesla Stock Split?

Tesla Inc TSLA stock was rallying over 5% at one point on Monday, almost completely filling the overhead gap left behind on Nov. 8 after CEO Elon Musk posted a poll on Twitter Inc TWTR  to ask whether he should sell 10% of his stock.

A majority of Musk’s Twitter followers voted in favor of the idea and subsequently, Musk sold 5.5 million shares between Nov. 8 and Nov. 12; 934,091 shares on Nov. 15; and another 934,091 on Nov. 16.

The total number of shares Musk has unloaded falls far short of the 10% he had promised and Twitter is speculating that may be because the eccentric Tesla founder has become aware of material news and is now in a black-out period, unable to sell or purchase company stock.

The Speculation: The rumor specifically points to the possibility of another stock split and popular fintwit personality @robgrav3s (Rob Graves) has spent time delving into Musk’s recent tweets to search for clues as to when the announcement may come, with all roads pointing to a possible Dec. 9 date.

It should be noted, however, Graves has repeatedly said his speculation is for entertainment only and he has no theories on the relevance of the numbers.

Much of Graves’ speculation is based on @adamhoov’s interpretations of a number of Musk’s recent tweets, which when taken either at face value or by applying calculations appear to reference the numbers 12.9. In one example, @adamhoov points to a Nov. 13 tweet where Musk wrote “129 Orbital Flights” to which @adamhoov asked, “What’s the significance behind pointing out 129 & why now?”

Another of Musk’s tweets, posted on Nov. 14 reads “Due to inflation 420 has gone up by 69,” which @adamhoov calculates can be reduced to 12.9 by adding the two numbers together to reach 489, then adding the first two numbers together to equal 12 and leaving the 9.

@adamhoov also pointed out that at exactly 12:09 a.m. on Nov. 18, Musk posted a quote by Will Durant, “We are choked with news and starved of history.”

In another example, on Friday Musk tweeted a meme with the caption, “Not a cellphone in sight ... Just people living in the moment" and Twitter user @irajinator noted the image from the meme can be found by googling “viking attack on iona 1209.”

On Nov. 18, @adamhoov pointed out Musk ‘liked’ an image posted by @archillect, which included a number of dice with one die showing both the numbers 12 and 9.

Some of the references may be more far-reaching than others but looking back, many believe Musk used a cryptic message to announce Tesla’s last stock split when he posted to Twitter on May 1 at 8:11 p.m PT. “Tesla stock price is too high imo.” A 5-1 (May 1) split was then announced on Aug. 11 (8.11).

The Benzinga Take: Whether Musk is using cryptic messages to make his followers aware of an impending second stock split, or whether he is trolling his followers for everyone’s entertainment, will be known on Dec. 11. Until then, social media will surely continue to follow the bread crumbs.

Image by Kirstine Rosas from Pixabay