Tesla shares fell to 4.6% on trading late Friday morning. (File)
Tesla Inc. has the potential to be a $ 1 trillion company? It’s a notion that caused Elon Musk to post on Twitter early on Friday, only for the billionaire to do something quite rare for him: delete a post.
The exchange began with a tweet from an account that regularly contains promotional posts about Tesla and “Full Self-Driving,” a package the company sells along with its Autopilot driver assistance system. The feature set often called the FSD is controversial because of Tesla’s mixed messages – the company tells drivers who use it that they need to be fully careful.
“FSD is the biggest thing ever,” wrote user @WholeMarsBlog. “Tesla will be bigger than Apple.”
I think there’s a> 0% chance Tesla will be the biggest company
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2021
Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said he believed there was a “0% chance that Tesla would be the largest company.” After another user wrote that he loved “the direction of that arrow,” Musk replied, “Probably in a few months.”
Musk then quickly deleted the last post. It is unclear whether he thought better of sending it or was asked to take down the tweet.
Tesla shares fell to 4.6% on trading late Friday morning. The stock has dropped 3.7% since 12:55 in New York.
As part of a deal with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 over Musk’s tweets about the company’s privatization, Tesla agreed to hire a security lawyer to review the directors’ social media posts and for ensure that they comply with disclosure policies and procedures. Tesla also agreed to oversee communications by Musk, in particular, and to approve in advance any information content to the company or shareholders.
A few hours before Friday’s exchange, the National Labor Relations Committee ruled that Tesla had repeatedly violated U.S. labor law and must persuade Musk to delete a tweet threatening to punish workers if they would unionize. He has not given up this position yet.
With a market capitalization of approximately $ 600 billion, Tesla has a long way to go to pass Apple Inc. as the largest company in the world. The market value of the iPhone manufacturer is about 2 trillion dollars.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published in a syndicated stream.)