Thomson Reuters
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk attends a forum on startups in Hong Kong
In two tweets fired out Tuesday morning, Musk called a report from Fortune's Carol Loomis published Tuesday "BS."
Loomis' report questioned whether Tesla withheld material information from shareholders after the company learned a driver using autopilot in the company's Model S sedan had died in an accident on May 7.
Loomis notes that the company sold over $2 billion of stock on May 18 - a sale that was executed before investors had learned about the autopilot death.
Tesla had long-telegraphed this sale of stock, saying on its first quarter earnings call it would need to raise cash to fund a ramp-up in vehicle production.
News of the crash became public last week, when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was looking into possible connections between Tesla's Autopilot system and fatal crashes.
Musk's tweets were directed at Alan Murray, Fortune's editor.
@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, 2016In an email on Monday, Musk told Fortune that disclosing this death, "is not material to the value of Tesla." Musk noted in that same exchanged that over 1 million people die in car accidents each year and that half of these deaths could be prevented if Tesla's autopilot features were universally available."
Musk's kicker implored Loomis to, "do the bloody math before you write an article that misleads the public."