Tesla’s share price dropped nearly 9 % on Friday morning, just after Tesla chief Elon Musk tweeted Friday the company’s stock price was “too high” in his opinion.
At 11:11 a.m. ET on Friday, Musk tweeted: “Tesla stock price is too high [in my opinion].” At the time of the tweet, Tesla’s share price was about $761 per share; an hour later, the company’s stock fell to $694.30 per share.
Tesla stock price is too high imo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2020
Tesla’s share price was already down a few percentage points on Friday when Musk sent his tweet. And overall, Tesla has been on a major run in the last month, with the company’s share price surging more than 40%. On Wednesday, Tesla reported an unexpected Q1 profit, which gave the Palo Alto-based car company an extra boost on Thursday. Investors could simply be taking some money off the table following a major spike in the last month, but the timing of his tweet and the sudden stock drop was conspicuous.
Musk’s tweet came during a morning flourish in which he tweeted lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner and said he was selling “almost all” of his physical possessions — although he stipulated “Gene Wilder’s old house,” which he bought in 2013, cannot be “torn down or lose any its soul.”
The Tesla and SpaceX head honcho made headlines earlier this week when he pushed back against what he called California’s “fascist” stay-at-home orders.
“If somebody wants to stay in their house, that’s great,” Musk said on Tesla’s earnings call. “They can stay in their house and they should not be compelled to leave. But to say that they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist. This is not democratic, this is not freedom. Give people back their g—— freedom.”
Even with the stock dip on Friday, Musk is probably still doing alright. Bloomberg’s Billionaires List has his net worth estimated at $39 billion, making him one of the 25 richest people on earth.