Elon Musk, it seems, just can’t help himself.
Even amid intense scrutiny of the Tesla CEO’s erratic Twitter behavior, Musk sent several impulsive missives on the social media platform on Tuesday.
It started when Musk replied to a tweet linking to a Forbes article called “A Female Founder’s Take on the Tears of Elon Musk,” denying that he cried during an interview with the New York Times:
For the record, my voice cracked once during the NY Times article. That’s it. There were no tears.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 28, 2018
A spokesperson for the Times told CNN that the paper stands by its description of the phone interview. “Mr. Musk’s emotion was audible. It is not true that his voice only cracked once,” the spokesperson said.
Then Drew Olanoff, a former TechCrunch writer, piped in to ask about the time Musk accused British diver Vern Unsworth, who helped rescue a Thai soccer team from a cave, of being a pedophile. After Musk’s initial “pedo” Tweet, Tesla’s share price dropped 4%:
You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me? He was offered free legal services. And you call yourself @yoda …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 28, 2018
In his response to Olanoff on Tuesday, Musk seemed to imply that if the “pedo” accusation were really false, the cave diver would have sued him.
Given recent events, you’d think Musk would lay off the tweet button.
Just two weeks ago, Musk’s tweet about possibly taking Tesla private briefly rallied investors and got the Securities and Exchange Commission’s attention. Some shareholders have sued. He’s blamed exhaustion for his unpredictable social media behavior, telling the New York Times he hasn’t taken a full week off work since 2001.
Last week, Arianna Huffington told Musk, who claims to work 120 hours a week, he should take better care of himself, to which he replied via Twitter at 2:30 a.m. saying change was not an option:
Ford & Tesla are the only 2 American car companies to avoid bankruptcy. I just got home from the factory. You think this is an option. It is not.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 19, 2018
Musk’s tweeting is becoming a liability for Tesla, which now has $11.2 billion in short positions according to S3 Partners. “I’ve never seen a share price more tethered to a CEO, and I’ve never seen a CEO who is more untethered from reality,” a Tesla investor told Vanity Fair earlier this year. “Elon Musk is clearly more of a genius than Steve Jobs ever was, but Steve was more of a pro than Elon Musk has ever been.”
