Tesla has been heading towards upheaval over this since he bought Twitter if only because Musk pretty much walked away from Tesla to focus on Twitter and now the SEC is threatening them, so yeah, that upheaval is possibly already in the works. Frankly, with a 50% drop in less than 2 months, wouldn't you be screaming if that consisted of a huge chunk of your portfolio and the CEO was off arguing with the world on Twitter instead of doing his job?
Would they still end up functional?
You'd like to think so but they have assets, valuable assets that can be sold off and all it takes is someone to do the same thing Musk did to Twitter (a full buyout) and then call in someone like Mitt Romney to rip it apart and sell off the assets, again, this was what happened to ToysRus. You don't want your assets to be worth more than the company is valued at. Granted, Tesla is a long way from that point (or so you would think based on value) but with stock drops like this, hedge funds will pile on and make it harder and harder for them to get capital to operate with and then that long slide begins. Worse, Tesla has a lot of important assetts others would love to get their hands on, it's not like Twitter where it's a bunch of leased servers or soon to be outdated server tech. Twitter could pack up and leave and few would notice, including the few remaining employees at this point so no one's going to buy them out like Musk did. There was a reason the board cheered and literally popped champagne when Musk made his offer, they knew it was stupid and they were getting a bailout. Beyond what it does, Twitter has very little. Servers age, they lease property... What's there to buy? Influence, influence wanes.
As for Tesla's assetts...
The charging network is a big plus to someone who wants it, it's big, it's fast..
China could use the technology, plus they already have many of the metals needed to build them. The Tesla name would offer a lot in the way of spreading Chinese cars.
Apple and Uber both need the skills and facilities to make a car.
And then you have every other major car and big rig manufacturer... This would be a boost in their electric and self driving portfolio of patents and skilled workers, giving them a leg up on pretty much all other companies on these fronts.
And any of these could work together to buy then out and split things up.
And it's not just the car industry to watch out for... I could see cell phone carriers or convenience stores going after the charging network, set them up with automated mini stores like Amazon stores. Put super chargers in front of every AMC movie theater... Anyone charging has time on their hands and need something to do so it's a captive audience with nothing to do.
Tesla is heading into a dangerous place.
Once it crosses that value vs assets line, or their ability to borrow ends, all bets are off on their future and they are very much NOT too big to fail. Worse, there's a LOT of hate towards Tesla from the conservative side of our gov. (and population) so even they may be reluctant to help keep them afloat.
