Elon Musk tells Tesla employees to ‘ignore stock price’ in leak email

In an email obtained by Electrek, CEO Elon Musk tells Tesla employees to “ignore stock price” as it soars to new highs in a market rally.

Over the last few weeks, Tesla’s stock price blew past its longtime all-time high to over $430 per share.

Musk addressed the recent rally in an email titled, “Please ignore stock price,” which was sent to Tesla employees and obtained by Electrek.

Musk wrote:

My silly jokes on Twitter are just that. What really matters is our actual execution and effectiveness as a company.

When he talks about “silly jokes,” he is likely referring to him tweeting “Whoa … the stock is so high lol” when Tesla’s stock price hit $420 per share:

Whoa … the stock is so high lol

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 23, 2019

It’s a joke about the significance of the number 420 in the marijuana community, but it’s also important in the context of being the same price he wanted to take Tesla private last year.

Many people didn’t believe anyone would buy Tesla at $420 and the Securities and Exchange Commission even ended up imposing a fine on Musk for what they believe was an exaggeration when he said that the funding was “secured” at that price.

Even though Tesla’s stock has now soared past that price to new highs, the CEO told employees that he thinks it will be “worth considerably more”:

Ultimately, I think Tesla will be worth considerably more than it is today, but there is a constant debate as to whether that means the value should be higher now or later.

Musk said that they should focus on “heads-down execution” at the moment:

This is the unfortunate consequence of being a publicly traded company. So it goes. Heads-down execution is the right thing to focus on now.

Tesla is currently trying to execute on two main goals for the end of the year.

As we reported earlier this month, Musk told employees that Tesla has “two most critical priorities” to accomplish by the end of 2019:

• The first [priority] is making sure all cars are delivered to their customers before the end of year.
• The second, just as important, is that we immediately increase the rate of solar deployments by a significant degree.

Tesla employees are also very invested in the stock price, since all employees have access to stock option plans.

Musk previously said that he believes stock price discussions can be a distraction for employees.

Electrek’s Take

It sounds like the stock price is a big topic of discussion around the office, and Elon wants to shut it down.

I would want to talk about it, too, if a significant part of my compensation was linked to it, but I also see how it can be distracting.

I also agree with Elon about Tesla being “worth considerably more” in the future, but this recent rally has been impressive. I’m not sure if he was trying to reassure employees thinking to sell, but I doubt many people took him seriously about the price being “high.”

Full disclosure: I am long TSLA.