If Elon Musk believes his freedom depends on wiping Tesla’s market value, he is now certainly far less constrained by the burden of worldly possessions. The company’s worth plunged $14 billion on his Friday tweets.
The stock of the electric car manufacturer dropped over 10 percent at the close of Nasdaq trading. The CEO, who triggered the nosedive by tweeting that Tesla share price was too high, got a $2.4 billion hole in his fortune, according to a Forbes estimate.
The tweet was one in a barrage unleashed by Musk on Friday, escalating an already stange week in the life of the eccentric billionaire. He also announced he would sell “almost all physical possessions” and posted lines from The Star Spangled Banner.
Why, his subscribers asked? The answer Musk tweeted back on Saturday was… ‘Freedom’. Or, perhaps, it should’ve been “FREEDOM,” which Musk has recently demanded for “the people” in another recent twitterstorm of his.
Freedom
Whether Musk found his inner William Wallace or an ascetic path to nirvana is anyone’s guess. But his online antics may land him in trouble with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk’s settlement with the SEC from the 2018 requires that a company lawyer reviews any information material to Tesla and interests of its shareholders before Musk makes it public. Whether his criticism of stock price qualifies as “material” is up for debate.
Before the tweets, Tesla showed better than expected first-quarter earnings. Its stock traded as high as $855,70 on Thursday before plunging to $701.32 the next day.Quite a few people wonder what’s happening with Musk, but at least one person seems to understand him “exactly.”
Exactly
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