Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the autopilot death doesn’t matter to investors
Joshua Brown crashed and died in Florida on May 7 while his Tesla vehicle was on autopilot.
But the public didn’t find out about it until June 30. And in between May 7 and June 30, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold $2 billion in Tesla stock at a public offering.
And when Fortune reported Monday that the stock offering occurred during that time period, Musk said the death was “not material to the value of Tesla.”
“Indeed, if anyone bothered to do the math (obviously, you did not) they would realize that of the over 1M auto deaths per year worldwide, approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available,” Musk wrote in an email to Fortune. “Please, take 5 mins and do the bloody math before you write an article that misleads the public.”
It was the first death caused by an autopilot driving system, which has been touted as far safer than the driving habits of humans. The system is still in beta mode.
And when the editor of Fortune tweeted the article reporting the stock sale, Musk doubled down and accused the publication of focusing on the “BS article” to increase advertising revenue.
@alansmurray Yes, it was material to you -- BS article increased your advertising revenue. Just wasn't material to TSLA, as shown by market.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2016
@alansmurray If you care about auto deaths as material to stock prices, why no articles about 1M+/year deaths from other auto companies?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2016
Fortune pointed to the fact that Tesla’s stock fell the morning after the crash was disclosed, though the stock reversed before the day was over.
“That the fact was indeed ‘material’ can be at least mildly suggested by the immediate fall in Tesla’s stock price on Friday morning. In a market that was then generally rising, Tesla stock dropped from Thursday’s close of $212 to a low of $206,” the article states. “But then the market reversed itself. By the end of the trading day, the stock had climbed above $216.”
Tesla had said in a statement Thursday that it immediately informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the crash, and NHTSA didn’t announce it until June 30.
This story was originally published July 5, 2016 at 4:46 PM with the headline "Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the autopilot death doesn’t matter to investors."