Elon Musk’s Twitter drama has roiled these Tesla-heavy ETFs
Dimitrios Kambouris

The ongoing saga involving Elon Musk and Twitter (TWTR) has put pressure on Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), as shares of the billionaire's electric vehicle maker has fallen to a string of 52-week lows amid ongoing signs that its CEO remains distracted by his purchase of the social media giant. This, in turn, has influenced trading in exchange traded funds that have heavy weightings towards TSLA.
The five largest TSLA holdings belong to the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSEARCA:XLY) at 19.15%, Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 1.5X Shares (TSLL) with a 18.87% allocation, ProShares Ultra Consumer Goods (UGE) at 17.87%, Vanguard Consumer Discretionary ETF (NYSEARCA:VCR) at 15.72%, and the Fidelity MSCI Consumer Discretionary Index ETF (FDIS), which has a portfolio weighting towards TSLA at 14.45%.
Daily price action: XLY -1.4%, TSLL -3.9%, UGE -1.5%, VCR -1.4%, and FDIS -1.4%.
Aside from the top five stakeholders, popular fund manager Cathie Wood and her actively managed disruptive innovation funds also hold strong ties to Tesla. Woodâs ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ) has a 10.49% stake in the EV maker, while her ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEARCA:ARKK) and ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) have 9.03% and 8.57% portfolio weightings.
Daily price action: ARKQ -1.8%, ARKK -3%, and ARKW -2.7%.
At the moment, TSLA is owned by 310 ETFs, 90 are actively managed ETFs, 28 ESG ETFs, and ten ETFs that have 10% or greater weightings towards the company.
Monday's trading came amid continued Twitter drama over the weekend, as Musk introduced a poll that asked if he should step down as head of Twitter.
Hope that the Musk will refocus his attention on Tesla (TSLA) brought on some gains in premarket action, but ongoing weakness in the overall market, spurred by a risk-off preference that has accompanied recent hawkish comments from the Federal Reserve, had TSLA showing losses again by 12:00 p.m. ET.
TSLA was down more than 2.5% in intraday trading, adding to a nearly 5% drop on Friday. With a lower finish, the stock would notch its 8th drop in the past 11 sessions. 
The recent slide has also pushed TSLA to a new 52-week low of $146.27. The stock has fallen about 63% in 2022.
The poll that Musk initiated showed that 57.5% of the voters were in favor of billionaire stepping down compared to the 42.5% who said he should remain as Twitter's head. Musk also stated in his tweet: âI will abide by the results of this poll."
For more on TSLA's core business, see Seeking Alpha contributor Mirco Lysek's deep dive into how the EV maker stacks up against legacy automaker GM.