Tesla stock falls toward first close below $200 in 17 months

Shares of Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
-5.01%
dropped 3.8% in afternoon trading, adding to the 3.6% drop in the previous session, and to put them in danger of the first sub-$200 close in 17 months. Investors in the electric vehicle giant may be expressing concerns that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk will be distracted given all the moves he’s making as the new owner Twitter, as they did when Musk first bid to buy the social media company. Shares of some other EV makers were also selling off, with Nikola Corp.’s
NKLA,
-3.38%
down 2.7% and China-based Nio Inc.’s
NIO,
-5.99%
shedding 5.8%, while XPeng Inc.’s stock
XPEV,
+0.38%
gained 0.6%. Tesla’s stock, which hasn’t closed below $200 on a split-adjusted basis since June 16, 2021, has sunk 30.7% over the past three months while the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.96%
has lost 8.2%.