You know how you keep looking at the clock at the exact same time nearly every day?

It's 7:18 pm for me.

Or, you bought a new car... and now they're suddenly everywhere?

It's a thing. Called a Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, or put simply, frequency bias.

I'm sure this is the case with our following story too... maybe.

The further down this rabbit hole I go, the more I (want to?) believe.

***Editor's note: This article comes to us via The EV Universe. It's a weekly EV newsletter going out to 1,500+ EV owners, industry leaders and enthusiasts. Join us at www.evuniverse.io

The more down the rabbit hole I go, the more I (want to?) believe.

The Setting

On May 1st (5/1), Elon Musk tweeted the Tesla stock price was too high:

 

On August 11th (8/11) the same year, Tesla announced a 5:1 stock split, which in turn led to a proper price rally.

Now, it's widely believed that Elon hinted at the split directly with this tweet: looking closely, the date & time is 8:11 on 5/1.  This is one of the reasons why the story below spreads well and might hold... electrons.

How It Started

Elon Musk jokes with his two favorite numbers:

 

And our protagonist, Adam Hoov, replies:

 

What Adam is implying, is that Tesla might split its stock on the 9th of December this year.

This is something the (retail) investor community has been waiting for. $TSLA has since gained like crazy (almost 5x, right) since the last split and closed at $1116 today. Also to note, splitting the stock usually brings more people in to buy it after the split, because of the lower entry barrier. Which is usually good for current investors.

You can see why the topic of splitting the stock is actual.

Sounds random enough? Sure. But this has sent the EV community, especially but not exclusively on Twitter, buzzing. You'll see threads about it all over. And on FB groups. And on YouTube videos. Chances are, you'll see some news portals catch on soon.

Once you're sucked in, you can't get out.

How It's Going

The snowball started rolling. The number combo had been set: 12/9.

Now comes in the see it everywhere part. Here's what has been uncovered so far, mostly by Adam Hoov,  Rob Graves, and Gary Black:

1. The 420+69 set the stage.

The 12/9 number combination has entered the game.

2. 129 Orbital Launches

Elon celebrates a very specific milestone of SpaceX. Weird. The 12/9 appears again.

 

3. December Liftoff

Enter: Gary Black, the Managing Partner of the Future Fund and Twitter-famous for his $TSLA analysis. An overall great guy, I've heard.

He pointed out the (maybe) a bit less important tweet where Elon claims 12M pounds of thrust at liftoff while showing clearly the 9 middle thrusters:

 

But Gary's main contribution to the theory comes from noticing something, that our next guy put together - the shares Elon has sold.

 

 

4. Elon selling shares

Enter: Rob Graves the Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer that shares cute animal videos... and Tesla conspiracy theories in Twitter, apparently.

 

As you know, Elon's been selling a bunch of his $TSLA stock to pay taxes. Most shares are sold in seemingly random quantities, except... these four.

Exactly 934,091 shares have now been sold four times. Random? Maybe not.

Rob argues that if you write 12/09/2021 out as a number - 12,092,021 - and divide it with our random number 934,091, you'll get 12.945228.

That's 12.9, while the remaining digits give you 4+5+2+2+8=21. Aka, the year.

He also goes on beyond this, using these Elon's tweets

 

to explain how the rest of the decimals also add up to 129. I'll spare you, although it is interesting to deep dive on here.

5. Elon likes his own tweet.

Why would @Elon now like his own tweet from the 12th of September? Flip the day/month for the Europeans?

 

 

6. Fractured but whole

Doesn't help if Elon comments, although on a relevant GIF, " Fractured but whole".

7. The anagram

Although a good meme, this too spurs some controversy. The "battle" pictured on his tweet is the Viking attack on Iona city, the last of which is thought to have happened in 1209. I like this one:

"A simpler time, it was" is also an anagram to "I'm team split, I swear"

 

8. The Release Notes

Here's another one from the community, from @TeslaHype:

Latest Tesla's FSD Beta v10.5 Release Notes feature 12 total items, with only one missing a dash in the front. You guessed it - the 9th item.

 

But isn't this... market manipulation?

Is SEC going to jump on Elon?

Here's a thread on why this wouldn't be the case per the 10b5-1 form used for selling the shares:

 

In short, shares were set to be sold at these dates already before the board meeting that took place on the second week of November (or over the weekend, which would be where the stock split could have been decided.)

There's more. The first hint, the 129 Orbital Flights, was tweeted by Elon on the 13th. Right after the probable board meeting vote, where they might have voted about the stock split, if consistent with the last stock split vote.

So - Elon would be free and clear to start hinting, leaving SEC powerless.

What about the stock split ratio? It was 5 to 1 last time, meaning each shareholder got 5 $TSLA stocks instead of 1. Rob thinks it will be shown by the times that the 934,091 shares will be sold (we don't know until he's done selling). So far, it's 4, which would mean, in this theory, a 4:1 split at 12/9.

If you want the full details, dive in at Adam's thread, and Rob's thread. As Mark put it well, the data points are increasing, not decreasing.

 

I'd love for all this to be true. It most certainly is fun. Also, for a refreshing while, we see something that truly brings the community together, rather than splitting us (pun intended).

More than 1,500 EV owners, EV industry execs and enthusiasts get our detailed weekly EV newsletter. This is where this article is from too. Join us at www.evuniverse.io  or on the subscribe button somewhere on this page.

DISCLAIMER: All and every speculation on this page is purely for entertainment purposes. NOT financial advice. We do not endorse anyone to sell and/or buy the $TSLA stock, as you should think with your darn head.  

Got a tip for us? Email: tips@insideevs.com