American investor and hedge fund manager Michael Burry got involved in a Twitter spat with Tesla chief Elon Musk.
The spat began after electric-truck maker Rivian made a successful IPO in the United States and its shares soared on Wall Street as its market capitalisation grew to over $100 billion.
Musk who owns his own electric car company shot a tweet saying: “I hope they are able to achieve high production and breakeven cash flow,” while adding, “That is the true test.”
The SpaceX chief then boasted that there are “hundreds of automotive startups, both electric and combustion” and then said: “Tesla is only American carmaker to reach high volume production and positive cash flow in past 100 years.”
However, Michael Burry retorted saying that the “true test” was achieving the feat “without massive government and electricity subsidies on the back of taxpayers who don’t own your cars”.
Rivian’s valuation rose above traditional carmakers Ford and General Motors although it does not produce as many cars as the US auto giants even as experts compared it to Tesla’s own achievements in the electric car market.
Tesla had recently hit $1 trillion in market value. However, Musk decided to sell over $6.9 billion worth of shares after a Twitter poll suggested that the billionaire should make the sale.
Tesla’s share price fell over 15 per cent as Musk, 50, sold 5.1 million Tesla shares.
Burry took the opportunity to hit out at Musk once again after he said in a tweet that Tesla’s stock could plunge like Amazon during the dot com burst in the 90s.
“Can $TSLA fall 80-90%? After 2000, many high flyers did. $AMZN fell 95% [two] decades ago, changed its whole [business], and thrived much later,” he said while deleting the tweet.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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