Much of the current issues surrounding the electric car company revolve around Elon Musk, the billionaire who heads up several projects including SpaceX, The Boring Company, and previously Paypal and Zip2. Musk fairly consistently has big ideas at the forefront of the public’s eye, such as his involvement in the Hyperloop, a proposed high-speed transportation system of pressurized tubes, and the space exploration company SpaceX, which plans on making space flight commercially viable for people.
However, Musk is also known for his larger than life persona, and although the billionaire is fairly soft spoken and mild mannered he has raised eyebrows throughout his career. Most recently, Musk tweeted about possibly taking Tesla private, subsequently drawing a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud.
The SEC claims his tweets mislead investors, and are pushing to have him removed from the position he holds at the company. Many at Tesla believe this would be detrimental to the company’s image. After the announcement of the lawsuit against Musk, the price of insuring Telsa’s debt also increased to an all time high, with growing fears that the company would default.
The companies stock had recently been suffering in the stock market. Musk appeared on a live podcast where he smoked a small amount of cannabis, which sent certain investors running and led to the company’s accountant leaving the corporation. Telsa’s stock was down almost 14%, but as of Monday, October 1st, their value jumped 15%.
