PayTM CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma Compares Himself To Elon Musk After Bad IPO Week

One 97 Communications Ltd. founder and CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma compared the massive plunge experienced by his company during the initial public offering to that of Elon Musk¡¯s Tesla Inc. PayTM¡¯s stock plummeted 27 percent on Thursday, resulting in a rather brutal IPO.

Reuters

Also Read: Trillion-Dollar Value: Elon Musk Remembers How Tesla Almost Failed In 2018

Reported first by Bloomberg, Sharma, in a four-hour-long town-hall meeting, tried to boost the morale of its staff that saw the gut-wrenching drop faced by the company. He asked them to look past this depression and look at the long term opportunities for bringing Indian users to digital payments.

During the town hall meeting, Sharma also reminded his employees that Tesla¡¯s stock also used to be among the most shorted globally. However, the company managed to overcome this over the years and has now become one of the most valuable carmakers in the world.

Yesterday, PayTM¡¯s shares rolled further down after the long holiday weekend. Eventually, the shares closed another 13 percent on Monday -- over 35 percent below the IPO offering price of Rs 2,150.

Reuters

Also Read: Elon Musk's Tesla Is Worth Over $1 Trillion, Only Sixth Company To Do So

What¡¯s surprising is that when Tesla went public in 2010, the shares actually rose 41 percent on the very first day. Although over time, they fell to as low as $4 each. However, since then they¡¯ve managed to surge considerably and resulted in the company to cross a market valuation of $1 trillion.

The carmaker also became the first to overtake stalwarts like Toyota Motor Corp. and become the world¡¯s most valuable automaker, last year in July 2020.

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