Tesla Shifts Into Reverse As Elon Musk Says Share Price Too High Amid Wild Tweetstorm

Tesla
TSLA
’s share price surge went into reverse after CEO Elon Musk said it was too high amid a string of erratic comments on Twitter that included lyrics from the Star-Spangled Banner and an intention to sell his physical possessions.

The electric-car maker’s stock was down about 10% in Nasdaq
NDAQ
trading to $704, after more than doubling in the past month. It jumped this week after the Silicon Valley-based company posted first-quarter earnings that topped analysts’ expectations and kept Musk on track to receive the biggest payday of his life. 

The South African-born billionaire all week attacked shutdowns and stay-at-home orders meant to curb the spread of COVID-19, but which have idled his San Francisco Bay Area auto plant since March 23. He told analysts in a conference call on April 29 that such efforts were “fascist,” and amped up that rhetoric a day later by seeming to endorse Twitter posts from fringe media figures claiming that coronavirus fatality figures are false or inflated. 

“I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house,” Musk tweeted to his 33.4 million followers on Friday. “Tesla stock price is too high imo. … Now give people back their FREEDOM.”

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

Twitter is Musk’s favored means of communication, but one that has created legal headaches ranging from Securities and Exchange Commission penalties to a defamation lawsuit. His frustration with public health steps taken in California seems to have intensified this week after Tesla’s plan to reopen its Fremont plant by May 4 was thwarted when local officials extended the current Bay Area shutdown through the end of May.

His tweetstorm on Friday included a random lyrics from the U.S. national anthem, echoing his anger over the coronavirus shutdown expressed in Tesla’s results call.

“The extension of the shelter in place or–frankly I would call it forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights in my opinion–is breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to America or built this country,” Musk said on Wednesday. “What the f—k. Excuse me.”

He also said his romantic partner, the singer Grimes is “mad at me” and is to give birth to their child next week.