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Tesla's stock is getting crushed after two executives jump ship and CEO Elon Musk smokes weed

Julie Bort   

Tesla's stock is getting crushed after two executives jump ship and CEO Elon Musk smokes weed
Tech3 min read

Elon Musk

AP

Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

  • Tesla's stock took a dive after news broke that two executives were leaving.
  • The chief accounting officer is leaving after just one month on the job.
  • The head of HR is also leaving, according to news reports.
  • Meanwhile, Tesla is looking to sell $920 million of convertible bonds to an increasingly skittish investor base, one investor says.
  • And CEO Elon Musk was filmed smoking pot and drinking whiskey during a 2+-hour long interview with comic and martial arts color commentator, Joe Rogan .


Tesla's stock is down over 7% on Friday, after two executives left and CEO Elon Musk was filmed smoking a spliff - weed mixed with tobacco - during a live YouTube interview and podcast on the "Joe Rogan Experience" on Thursday.

Tesla's chief accountant, Dave Morton, resigned Tuesday after just a month at the company, the automaker revealed in an SEC filing on Friday. Morton blamed the intense pace of work at Tesla, plus the constant scrutiny, as the reason for his quick departure, but he also stressed that he had no "disagreements with Tesla's leadership or its financial reporting," he said in comments revealed in the filing.

"Since I joined Tesla on August 6th, the level of public attention placed on the company, as well as the pace within the company, have exceeded my expectations," Morton explained in the filing.

Also on Friday, Bloomberg reported that Tesla's human-resources chief, Gaby Toledano, would not return from a leave of absence that began in August.

The string of bad news wiped more than $3 billion off of Tesla's market cap.

As Business Insider reported this week, employees inside the company describe 70-hour work weeks, an "intense" environment and a cult-like atmosphere that reveres both workaholism and Musk himself. Musk is working so many hours that employees find him sleeping under tables at Tesla's facilities.

Elon Musk

Joe Rogan Experience/YouTube

Meanwhile, Musk was recorded on Thursday taking a drag on a marijuana/tobacco joint while being interviewed on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast on Thursday. He spent more than 2 1/2 hours talking to Rogan with the two men later drinking a whiskey during the interview. During the interview Musk said it was "wrong" and "dangerous" for people to buy the flamethrowers that he made and put on sale and said that The Boring Company "started out as a joke."

In Tesla's financial news, with Musk's short-lived plan to take the company private announced as dead, Tesla is looking to infuse the company with cash by issuing $920 million of convertible bonds.

These will give holders the option to convert them for Tesla stock at $360 per share on March 1, 2019, reports Business Insider's Graham Rapier. If the stock is trading below that $360 when the options mature, Tesla will potentially have to repay that $920 million.

A shareholder told Business Insider's Rapier that some core investors are losing "confidence" in Musk.

With word of these executive departures, the stock dipped as much as 10% on Friday, though rebounded a couple of points and was trading at under $263 later in the day.

Tesla stock dive

Markets Insider

Here's a rundown of all the news on Tesla this week.

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.

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