Summary
- A number of analysts and investors say Musk’s comments were adding to their concerns that his public statements were distracting him from Tesla’s main business.
- The stock sell-off knocked almost $2 billion off the company’s market value.
- The billionaire entrepreneur’s spat with British caver Vernon Unsworth started last week, after rescue teams rejected Musk’s offer of a mini-submarine.
Shares of Tesla Inc fell over 3.5 percent on Monday after Chief
Executive Elon Musk directed abuse on Twitter at one of the British
cavers involved in the rescue of 12 Thai children last week.
A number of analysts and investors, requesting anonymity, told Reuters
that Musk’s comments were adding to their concerns that his public
statements were distracting him from Tesla’s main business of producing
electric cars. The stock sell-off knocked almost $2 billion off the
company’s market value.
Tesla shares were at $307.20 in after-hours trading on Monday from Friday’s close of $318.87.
James
Anderson, a partner at Tesla’s fourth-largest shareholder, asset
manager Baillie Gifford, called the weekend’s events “a regrettable
instance” and said he had reiterated to the company the need for “peace
and execution” of its core business.
The billionaire entrepreneur’s spat with British caver Vernon
Unsworth started last week, after rescue teams rejected Musk’s offer of a
mini-submarine created by his rocket company SpaceX to help rescue a
12-member soccer team and their coach trapped inside a flooded cave in
the northern province of Chiang Rai.
“He can stick his
submarine where it hurts,” CNN quoted Unsworth as saying last week. “It
just has absolutely no chance of working.”
Musk shot
back on Sunday on Twitter: “We will make one (video) of the mini-sub/pod
going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did
ask for it.” The tweet was later deleted.
Tesla
spokespeople and lawyers did not respond to emails and phone calls from
Reuters requesting comment on Musk’s comments on Twitter.
Musk
gave no evidence for alleging Unsworth was a pedophile. Unsworth said
he would consider taking legal action against Musk over the remarks, in
comments filmed in Chiang Rai on Monday by Australia’s 9News.
“It’s
not finished. No justification. At the end of the day we were here to
rescue 12 young boys. I don’t really understand the guy. Obviously it’s a
bruised ego. I’ll take advice when I get back to London,” Unsworth told
9News.
Reuters could not immediately reach Unsworth for comment.
His
wife, Voranan Rattawipakhun, told Reuters on Monday that her husband
would return to Britain on July 19, where he will speak to lawyers.
A
police officer in the Chiang Rai district where Unsworth has lived for
seven years, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to
speak to the media, said that no charges or complaints had ever been
filed against Unsworth.
In a Tweet, Musk had proposed
“a tiny kid sized submarine” for the rescue. He showed a test of the
submarine in a Los Angeles swimming pool on July 9.
Last
week, Narongsak Osottanakorn, the leader of the rescue operation in
Thailand, rejected Musk’s mini-submarine as not suitable for the task.
Musk responded on Twitter on July 10, calling Osottanakorn “not the
subject matter expert.”
Musk also regularly uses
Twitter to criticise media reports on Tesla, which has struggled to meet
its own production targets for its Model 3 sedan, which is seen as key
to the company’s profitability.
No comments :
Post a Comment