- South Korean retail investors together own more than $15 billion in Tesla stock, Bloomberg reported.
- It's a bigger stake than that held by billionaire investor Larry Ellison, per Bloomberg.
- One South Korean family told Bloomberg they ploughed their entire $230,000 savings into Tesla.
Retail investors in South Korea hold a combined stake of more than $15 billion in Elon Musk's Tesla, according to Bloomberg.
Many have gone all-in on the electric carmaker, with one family ploughing their entire $230,000 life savings into Tesla stock, Bloomberg said.
The stake held collectively by South Korean retail investors is equivalent to 1.6% of the company — more than the holdings of billionaire investor Larry Ellison or investment group T. Rowe Price, Bloomberg calculated, citing August 17 data.
Some of Tesla's South Korean fans describe themselves as "Teslams," a portmanteau of "Tesla" and "Islam," and an apparent show of faith in the company.
Many bought Tesla stock during the pandemic, during which the combined holdings of South Korean retail investors grew more than a hundredfold, per Bloomberg.
Park Sunghyun told Bloomberg she and her husband injected their $230,000 savings into Tesla stock after being priced out of buying a new home around 2019. "With this man, I thought we could go all-in," Park, mother to a seven-year-old son, said.
Tesla stock closed at $889.36 Tuesday, meaning it's down 15.8% year-to-date. It's been beaten down amid a broad pullback in the tech sector on the back of interest rate hikes and recession fears. The stock also got knocked in June after Musk announced he's thinking about job cuts at Tesla.
Earlier this month, Musk sold Tesla shares worth nearly $7 billion to raise cash in case he's ultimately forced to buy Twitter. It means Musk owns about 155 million shares in the company, according to Bloomberg data.
