Elon Musk never stays out of headlines. His posts on X, from anything to everything, don't always have a positive impact. In 2020, the Tesla boss wiped close to $14 billion off the carmaker's value after tweeting that its share price was too high. It knocked $3 billion off Musk's stake in Tesla as investors started taking out their money. "Tesla stock price too high in," he said in one of several tweets that included a vow to sell his possessions, via BBC.
Within moments of posting the tweet, Tesla share prices started plummeting, dropping 10 percent over an hour before slightly recovering. Musk later admitted to the Wall Street Journal that his damaging post had not been loved by the company before he decided to post it. Following the message, Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities told Reuters: “We view these Musk comments as tongue in cheek and it's Elon being Elon. It's certainly a headache for investors for him to venture into this area as his tweeting remains a hot button issue and [Wall] Street clearly is frustrated," via Wall Street Journal.
This was not the first that his words backfired on him. Back in 2018, Tesla made an incorrect claim that they were close to a buyout of Tesla. He wrote at the time, "I am considering taking Tesla private at $420, and added the cryptic message "funding secured." This sent shockwaves through the financial world and investors started pouring in their money in hopes to see their money double. However, people soon realized that his tweet was far from accurate.
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This led to a complaint from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and a settlement that involved Musk agreeing to not issue market-moving tweets in the future without getting them cleared with his company's legal department. Later in 2021, Musk reached a settlement with the SEC over an allegation of security fraud related to his tweets on the buyout. He was then asked to step down as the chairman and also pay a $20 million fine which Musk personally paid, without admitting to his wrongdoing.
"Tesla has abdicated the duties required of it by the court’s order," the SEC told Tesla in a May 2020 letter.
His "funding secured" tweet came just weeks after he used the platform to accuse a British cave explorer, who had helped with the famous Thai cave rescue, of being a "pedo guy." Vernon Unsworth sued Musk in 2019 for defamation seeking punitive and compensatory damages. In his legal team’s opening statement, attorney Taylor Wilson said, “Unsworth brought this lawsuit against Musk for accusing him of being a pedophile in what should have been one of the proudest moments of his life.”
Instead, Musk brought the British man who helped in the cave rescue “shame,” Wilson said. Following the lawsuit, Musk filed a declaration that the term that he used was a common insult in South Africa.
