Tesla Tumbles After Musk Tweets Stock Too High

Shares of Tesla Inc. tumbled 9 percent on Friday after Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk tweeted that the electric carmakers high-flying stock was overly expensive.

“Tesla stock price is too high,” Musk said on Twitter in one of several unusual messages, including ones quoting parts of the U.S. national anthem and that he would sell almost all his physical possessions.

The subsequent share drop erased around $13 billion from Teslas market value and nearly $3 billion from the value of Musks stake. Still, shares remain up almost 50 percent from the start of April.

More than two hours after the tweets began, Tesla had not responded to requests for comment. Twitter declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk had responded to an email asking whether he was joking or whether his tweet was vetted by saying, “No.”

Musk has a history of sending provocative tweets.

In August 2018, he tweeted that he had secured funding to possibly take Tesla private at a big premium, which led a fraud case by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk settled by agreeing to pay $20 million and have a Tesla lawyer pre-screen tweets with important information about the company.

Last month, a federal judge said Tesla and Musk must face a lawsuit by shareholders over the going-private tweet, including a claim that Musk intended to defraud them.

In April 2019 Musk tweeted, “My Twitter is pretty much complete nonsense at this point.”

“We view these Musk comments as tongue in cheek and its Elon being Elon. Its certainty a headache for investors for him to venture into this area as his tweeting remains a hot button issue and the Street clearly is frustrated,” Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said by email.

Teslas stock has surged in recent weeks, but is down since Wednesday after the company reported an unexpected quarterly profit, despite manufacturing interruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Musks latest tweets follow others this week. On Teslas quarterly conference call on Wednesday, he called sweeping U.S. stay-at-home restrictions to curtail the coronavirus outbreak “fascist.” Those restrictions have forced Tesla to shutter its car plant in Fremont, California.

“Musk has recently expressed some strong and, at times, controversial, viewRead More – Source