Tesla inc.’s share price yesterday crossed the $1,00 mark for the first time ever after a memo from CEO Elon Musk urging employees to fast-track the product of its semi-trucks leaked. In the memo, Musk urged employees to go all out and focus on raising the production volumes of the Tesla Semi.
The share price rally saw the automaker’s market capitalisation jump to $190 billion making it the second most valuable automaker in the world behind Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp, which is valued at $216 billion.
Now, the memo did not go into the details of how the company’s employees were supposed to ramp up production, but Musk confirmed its legitimacy via Twitter with a simple ‘yes’ when asked whether the memo was real.
We could not ignore the fact that the memo leak happened just days after Nikola Motors, Tesla’s competitor IPO’d on the Nasdaq and investors bid up its share price. We covered the surge in Nikola Motors shares two days ago, which makes Musk’s leaked memo very suspicious.
This would not be the first time that the controversial CEO has made such a move given that he was fined $20 million by the SEC for tweeting about taking the company private in 2018. The scandal saw Musk forced to step down from his role as the firm’s chairman but he retained his position as CEO.