ELON’S HIGH LIFE
Investors see Tesla’s value go up in smoke
Elon Musk should invent something that keeps his mouth shut.
Shares of Musk’s Tesla fell to their lowest point in five months on Friday after the eccentric CEO was seen lighting up and smoking marijuana on a podcast.
In a two-and-a-half-hour discussion with comedian Joe Rogan, Musk touched on topics as diverse as living in a computer simulation to coming up with a flamethrower “that’s not a flamethrower” as a promotional item for his Boring Company.
At the same time that a video of Musk’s wacky weed affair was going viral, reports surfaced that two top execs at the embattled electric-car maker abruptly departed.
The whirlwind day, which saw shares fall 6.3 percent, to $263.24, capped a wild month in which Musk surprised his company’s board by saying that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private.
It was quickly learned there was no financing secured — prompting federal regulators to launch a probe.
The Thursday night interview in Los Angeles with Rogan culminated with the two men smoking a blunt.
Musk didn’t appear to be doing anything illegal because recreational use of marijuana is legal in the state of California.
“I’m not a business magnate,” he said during the podcast. “I’m a business magnet,” Musk told Rogan early on.
Musk, who has often voiced concern over the expansive use of artificial intelligence, spoke of AI in the matrix.
“There are many, many simulations. These simulations, we might as well call them reality, or you can call them multiverse,” Musk mused.
On the climate, Musk offered an observation.
“We move carbon from the ground to the atmosphere (and from there into the oceans) is an incredibly dangerous experiment whose ultimate outcome is unknown,” the Tesla chief told Rogan.
“We should not do this,” he said. “We know that sustainable energy is the end point. So why are we doing this experiment? It’s an insane experiment. It’s the dumbest experiment in human history,” he added.
On Friday, Tesla’s chief accounting officer unexpectedly resigned after a month on the job — leaving a hole in the embattled company’s management.
Dave Morton, who joined the electric-car maker Aug. 6, tendered his resignation on Sept. 4, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.
The resignation is effective immediately.
In addition, Gabrielle Toledano, Tesla’s head of human resources, who’s been on a leave of absence since late August, told Bloomberg that she won’t rejoin the company.
After the markets closed Friday, Tesla published a blog post by Musk that announced the promotions of seven Tesla employees, promised new products and asked his company’s supporters to ignore negative media reports.
“For a while, there will be a lot of fuss and noise in the media,” Musk wrote. “Just ignore them. Results are what matter and we are creating the most mind-blowing growth in the history of the automotive industry.”