Elon Musk Smokes Spliff, Sinks Stock - But That's Just the Start of It

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems
elon musk smokes spliff sinks stock but thats just the start of it

Today’s installment of “This Week in Elon” sees the Tesla CEO appear on the top-rated Joe Rogan Experience podcast and partake in drug consumption that’s legal in the state in which it was filmed. One hopes Musk didn’t pile into his Model S afterwards and drive away while baked.

Normally, what happens in an executive’s private life remains private until it hits the papers ahead of an impending trial, or perhaps fills the pages of a tell-all bestseller. This being Musk, however, questionable antics seem to occur all the time, usually in a public forum, and shareholders, analysts, and no doubt the company’s board aren’t too pleased with it.

It’s not on the same level as Lee Iacocca showing up on the Merv Griffin Show and railing a line of blow, but Musk’s podcast appearance, combined with two high-profile departures, sent Tesla shares tumbling.

Looking like an awkward, straight-laced teenager who dreams of fitting in with the in-crowd, 47-year-old Musk toked on a hefty joint fired up by the show’s host during the Thursday night live broadcast. Rogan informed Musk, who already had a glass of whiskey going, that the joint contained — what else — marijuana, mixed with tobacco.

“I’m not a regular smoker of weed,” Musk said on the live broadcast, claiming the single puff had no effect on him. The two sweaty men then put the joint away and went on with the show. When trading opened Friday morning, Tesla shares plummeted nearly 10 percent, rebounding to a price of $267.52 at midday, or 4.8 percent lower than the previous day’s close.

It’s not just the Joe Rogan weedfest that has investors losing sleep. Last week, the CEO got into it with a BuzzFeed reporter over the topic of the litigious British cave diver Musk can’t stop alluding to as a pedophile. The reporter then published the combative email exchange. Today brings news (via Bloomberg) that Tesla’s “chief people officer,” Gaby Toledano, isn’t returning to the company after taking a leave of absence in late August.

At the same time, Tesla’s chief accounting officer, Dave Morton, signalled in a filing (also obtained by Bloomberg) that he intends to leave the company, less than a month after coming aboard.

“Since I joined Tesla on August 6th, the level of public attention placed on the company, as well as the pace within the company, have exceeded my expectations,” Morton said, adding, “This caused me to reconsider my future.”

All of this comes after an aborted attempt by Musk to take the company private, using funding that apparently was not at all secured. “Imagined” would be a better word. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund, mentioned by Musk as a potential (and likely) source of funding, reportedly balked at the idea of becoming more involved with the automaker. A rumor that Volkswagen was interested in backing the deal turned out to be hot air. VW chief financial officer Frank Witter told Bloomberg TV that the auto giant never considered becoming an investor, and wasn’t approached about the matter, either.

If all of this wasn’t enough, Tesla admitted this week that it missed a production target for the Model 3 sedan. The automaker stated its plan, two months ago, to reach a weekly output of 6,000 Model 3s per week, but that target went unmet.

It was one month ago today that Musk issued his fateful go-private tweet that landed him in hot water with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as a handful of angry investors. Since then, Tesla’s share price has fallen by nearly 30 percent, erasing billions from the company’s valuation.

And some industry observers have the nerve to question Musk’s leadership…

[Image: JRE Clips/ YouTube]

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  • Tylanner Tylanner on Sep 09, 2018

    It is kinda poetic that the same mindset that gave birth to the war on drugs is the same mindset that is now drowning traditional automakers...and If a cat has nine lives, Ford must have 30 because they are more of an anchor on our economy than a buoy. But things must be incredibly disorganized if a new accounting officer leaves after a week...

  • Rpn453 Rpn453 on Sep 10, 2018

    I'm 1:30 in and they haven't smoked anything yet. However, Rogan is apparently just learning that modern electric vehicles have stability control. I'll predict that he will need to light up soon, following a mind-blowing revelation that pretty much every vehicle has had stability control for a decade now.

  • Jeanbaptiste Any variant of “pizza” flavored combos. I only eat these on car trips and they are just my special gut wrenching treat.
  • Nrd515 Usually for me it's been Arby's for pretty much forever, except when the one near my house dosed me with food poisoning twice in about a year. Both times were horrible, but the second time was just so terrible it's up near the top of my medical horror stories, and I have a few of those. Obviously, I never went to that one again. I'm still pissed at Arby's for dropping Potato Cakes, and Culver's is truly better anyway. It will be Arby's fish for my "cheat day", when I eat what I want. No tartar sauce and no lettuce on mine, please. And if I get a fish and a French Dip & Swiss? Keep the Swiss, and the dip, too salty. Just the meat and the bread for me, thanks. The odds are about 25% that they will screw one or both of them up and I will have to drive through again to get replacement sandwiches. Culver's seems to get my order right many times in a row, but if I hurry and don't check my order, that's when it's screwed up and garbage to me. My best friend lives on Starbucks coffee. I don't understand coffee's appeal at all. Both my sister and I hate anything it's in. It's like green peppers, they ruin everything they touch. About the only things I hate more than coffee are most condiments, ranked from most hated to..who cares..[list=1][*]Tartar sauce. Just thinking about it makes me smell it in my head. A nod to Ranch here too. Disgusting. [/*][*]Mayo. JEEEEZUS! WTF?[/*][*]Ketchup. Sweet puke tasting sludge. On my fries? Salt. [/*][*]Mustard. Yikes. Brown, yellow, whatever, it's just awful.[/*][*]Pickles. Just ruin it from the pickle juice. No. [/*][*]Horsey, Secret, whatever sauce. Gross. [/*][*]American Cheese. American Sleeze. Any cheese, I don't want it.[/*][*]Shredded lettuce. I don't hate it, but it's warm and what's the point?[/*][*]Raw onion. Totally OK, but not something I really want. Grilled onions is a whole nother thing, I WANT those on a burger.[/*][*]Any of that "juice" that Subway and other sandwich places want to put on. NO, HELL NO! Actually, move this up to #5. [/*][/list=1]
  • SPPPP It seems like a really nice car that's just still trying to find its customer.
  • MRF 95 T-Bird I owned an 87 Thunderbird aka the second generation aero bird. It was a fine driving comfortable and very reliable car. Quite underrated compared to the GM G-body mid sized coupes since unlike them they had rack and pinion steering and struts on all four wheels plus fuel injection which GM was a bit late to the game on their mid and full sized cars. When I sold it I considered a Mark VII LSC which like many had its trouble prone air suspension deleted and replaced with coils and struts. Instead I went for a MN-12 Thunderbird.
  • SCE to AUX Somebody got the bill of material mixed up and never caught it.Maybe the stud was for a different version (like the 4xe) which might use a different fuel tank.
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