Shares of Tesla, Inc. fell more than 6 percent on Friday following CEO Elon Musk’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, during which he appeared to smoke marijuana mixed with tobacco.
The stock’s falling prices also came amid the departure of the company’s chief accounting officer, Dave Morton, after just a month on the job, according to The Associated Press.
{mosads}Musk appeared for more than two hours on Rogan’s podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” during which he was offered a spliff by Rogan and accepted, noting that the drug is legal for recreational use in California, where the podcast is recorded.
“Yeah, I think I tried one once,” Musk tells Rogan before smoking. “I mean it’s legal, right?” the SpaceX founder continues, after Rogan questions whether “stockholders” would take issue with him smoking.
The stock’s price fell by 6.3 percent to $263.24 per share on Friday, while Morton was quoted in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the public pressure of the job was too much for him.
“Since I joined Tesla on August 6th, the level of public attention placed on the company, as well as the pace within the company, have exceeded my expectations,” he said, according to the AP.
“As a result, this caused me to reconsider my future. I want to be clear that I believe strongly in Tesla, its mission, and its future prospects, and I have no disagreements with Tesla’s leadership or its financial reporting,” he continued.
Tesla has been hit with a series of negative news stories in recent months, including news that the company was being probed by the SEC for Musk’s tweet last month announcing a plan under consideration to take the company private.
Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the company’s debt to “junk” status earlier this year.