Musk remarks hit stocks
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the company’s stock price is too high, causing it to tumble.
Late last week, Mr Musk tweeted “Tesla stock price is too high, IMO [in my opinion].”
Tesla's stock had been trading at about $US760 a share, but after his post, it sank below $US700 within minutes before rebounding slightly. In the hours that followed, the stock was down 8 per cent.
Mr Musk made a string of announcements in the leadup to the stock price tweet, including saying that he was “Selling almost all my physical possessions” and “Will own no house”, followed by lyrics from the US national anthem.
After the stock price tweet, he posted saying “Now give people back their FREEDOM”, likely a reference to coronavirus lockdowns that Mr Musk has long protested.
In 2018, Mr Musk tweeted that he was planning to take Tesla private which, it later turned out, he did not.
In the fallout from that tweet, he reached a deal with the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) that anything he tweeted that could impact the company's stock price would be reviewed before being posted.
Professor John Coffee, and expert in corporate law at Columbia University, says Mr Musk is unlikely to get in as much trouble this time.
He said the tweet simply states Mr Musk's personal opinion, rather than anything concrete.
“Moreover, it is very rare for a CEO to admit that his stock price is too high, and such assessments should be encouraged, not punished,” Prof Coffee said.
It is not the first time the Tesla founder has reflected on his own company’s stock price.
“The stock price that we have is more than we have any right to deserve,” he said in 2013.
“Whoa ... the stock is so high lol,” he tweeted in 2019.