Investors Ignore Musk Drug Charges

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 9, 7:05AM EST

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Investors Ignore Musk Drug Charges — © Maja Hitij / Getty Images News via Getty Images

The Wall Street Journal had a lengthy expose about Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) CEO Elon Musk’s drug use. He denied the report almost immediately. The article also said some board members of both Tesla and SpaceX, the rocket company Musk runs, were aware of the issue and it troubled them. The day after the accusations by the paper, Tesla stock rose over 1% to $240. No one cared about what the newspaper had to say.

What happened? There is regular news about Musk’s behavior. He sometimes sleeps under his desk. He says he has bipolar disorder. His purchase of Twitter, now named X, was incredibly irresponsible financially—for now. However, year after year, his largest companies post strong results. His behavior is an investor’s sideshow.

So What?

Tesla is a case in point about how little Musk’s activities affect results. Last year, Tesla’s deliveries rose 38% to 1.81 million vehicles. Tesla holds over 50% of the U.S. electric vehicle market. Musk has strategically cut prices on some models to take market share from smaller rivals. Investors have applauded the move. At $746 billion in market cap, Tesla is worth 16 times more than General Motors. Tesla’s market cap is also ninth among all companies traded on U.S. exchanges, just behind Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

SpaceX currently dominates the commercial rocket industry. NASA and many private companies pay for its reusable rockets. It has elbowed out traditional suppliers like Boeing. The private company was recently valued at $180 billion.

Musk has also created Starlink, an internet delivery system that uses 12,000 low-orbit satellites, a figure that may grow to 42,000. Starlink’s strategy is to deliver internet service anywhere in the world. This has been impossible using traditional infrastructure. (See 10 amazing things Elon Musk invented.)

News about Elon Musk’s drug use was ignored because almost no one thinks it affects his ability to run his companies or his innovative thinking.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.