Elon Musk tweets new criticism of Wall Street’s Tesla skeptics
Elon Musk is still amped up over some Wall Street skepticism regarding his Tesla electric car company’s financial prospects.
Two days after he got testy with financial analysts who raised questions of a potential cash crunch that could put the brakes on Tesla’s growth, the billionaire entrepreneur took to Twitter Friday and doubled down.
First, he cautioned investors and Tesla fans to beware of a “tedious discussion” ahead.
Next, he said Tesla is a magnet for short-sellers (investors who bet that a company’s stock value will fall, and profit if it does).
Then he offered his take on the financial motivations of two analysts he “ignored” during Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. He characterized them as proponents of the “short seller thesis.”
Musk took a new swipe at Sanford Bernstein analyst A.M. Sacconaghi, who asked him during Wednesday’s conference call about capital requirements for Tesla. After proclaiming that “boring questions are not cool. Next.” during the call, he amplified his view during the tweet tirade.
Musk also had more to say about RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Robert Spak, who questioned him during the conference call about the volume of buyer reservations for Tesla’s Model 3 cars.
During the conference call, he snapped that “these questions are so dry. They’re killing me.” Via Twitter, Musk called the RBC inquiry “absurd,” and said “roughly half a million reservations” for the Model 3 showed strong demand.
Drawing his rant to a close, at least for now, Musk returned to a favourite topic — the flamethrowers his Boring tunnelling and drilling firm marketed to thousands of eager buyers early this year.
In February, Musk said he’d sold all 20,000 of the $500 flamethrowers in just five days.
Musk’s the-best-defence-is-agood-offence strategy came amid Wall Street concern about a potential cash crunch at Tesla, worries that cast a shadow over the company before it reported its earnings results.
Tesla shares initially rose after the company reported a $567.9 million loss, in line with financial analysts’ forecasts though higher than the previous quarter and above the same period last year.
After Musk’s brush-offs during the conference call, Tesla shares fell in after-hours trading Wednesday and closed down more than 5 per cent Thursday at $284.45 a share.