Elon Musk melts down about stay-at-home order during Tesla call

Elon Musk more to say about social distancing measures even after he rage-tweeted on the topic Wednesday morning.

Tesla’s first quarter earnings call Wednesday afternoon started with prepared marks from CEO Elon Musk that noticeably and awkwardly avoided mentioning coronavirus or anything about the pandemic. 

But as the call progressed, Musk’s true feelings about shelter-in-place requirements, like those in the Bay Area that are keeping his Fremont, California car plant shut down until at least June, surfaced. He could barely contain himself as he used profanity to describe his thoughts on shelter-in-place efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19. 

“What the fuck,” he proclaimed after going on about shelter-in-place forcibly imprisoning people in their homes and destroying the American dream.

Here’s the whole first part of his rant:

He managed to compose himself before he went off again, calling the orders “fascist” and undemocratic before ending with, “Give people back their goddamn freedom.”

Even though Tesla made a profit this quarter, it was supposed to be a stronger start to a solid 2020. The pandemic is ruining any likelihood of that. As Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at automotive analysis firm Edmunds, emailed over, “COVID-19 essentially robbed what would’ve been a home run for Elon Musk, so it’s unsurprising that he’s been leaning into the ‘Free America’ rhetoric on Twitter.”

And now he’s leaning into it on real-time publicly available phone calls with investors, analysts, and the media.