Is everything okay with Tesla and Elon Musk?

A BIZARRE outburst from Elon Musk this week has Wall Street anxious and investors worrying about the famous CEO.

IN 2001, during a conference call with investors to discuss first-quarter earnings Enron CEO Jeff Skilling got a little testy, calling one listener an a**hole.

He was responding to Richard Grubman a managing director at a hedge fund who was known for shorting companies, betting on their share price falling. Mr Grubman was asking for a balance sheet for the first quarter of 2001 and not just the income statements provided.

As it turned out, the hedge fund manager was right to pry. Later that year Enron collapsed in scandal in one of the biggest cases of corporate accounting fraud in history.

This week the bizarre behaviour of arguably the world’s most visible CEO, Elon Musk, drew comparisons to that now infamous call. During his own conference call with investors and the media, he avoided rudimentary questions because they were “boring” and “not cool”.

“Excuse me. Next. Boring, bonehead questions are not cool. Next?,” he said, interrupted one analyst.

On Tesla's earnings call just now, Elon Musk got so tired of investors' "boring" questions about the company's finances that he cut them off and started taking questions from a YouTuber instead.

— Will Oremus (@WillOremus) May 2, 2018

Just after the electric car and solar panel company announced a record first- quarter loss, the Tesla CEO cut off two analysts who sought some basic answers: details about the company’s cash needs and orders for its all-important Model 3 mass-market electric car.

“These questions are so dry. They’re killing me,” Musk said as he dismissed an RBC Capital Markets analyst in favour of a blogger who served up queries more to his liking.

You can listen to the bizarre outburst below.

This cut-off from Elon Musk cost Tesla over $2 billion in market capitalization https://t.co/ZPhfiSBne4 $TSLA pic.twitter.com/McW8LpCxYY

— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) May 3, 2018

It didn’t long before people started making the comparison to the fateful Enron call.

See below @elonmusk for instructive history of Enron's share price after Jeff Skilling's "Asshole" breakdown on Q1 2001 conference call. pic.twitter.com/K4DcdjTbBl

— J Pierpont Morgan (@pierpont_morgan) May 3, 2018

elon rudely dismissing analysts politely asking simple questions feels like an enron conference call.

— Peter Eavis (@uwsgeezer) May 2, 2018

Investors have for years endured millions of dollars in short-term losses in hopes of a long-term pay-off. They might have even been able to stomach the $A10 million that Tesla burns through each day. But it was a conference call Thursday that left many wondering how much more they can take.

Shares fell quickly in after-hours trading, and analysts began writing that Musk shouldn’t bite the hands that feed his company’s enormous cash needs because soon he may need more. By Friday, Tesla stock had lost nearly six per cent of its value.

“While they may be dry in nature, we argue such questions are extremely important for a highly leveraged and cash-hungry company,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a note to investors.

Tesla boss Elon Musk with the new Roadster. Source: Supplied.

Marketing and selling flamethrowers is one thing, but the behaviour of the eccentric billionaire is causing anxiety for investors on Wall Street.

It has followed some recent wild tweets by Musk about building a cyborg dragon, how his eyebrows can grab things and an April 1 post in which he wrote: “Despite intense efforts to raise money, including a last-ditch mass sale of Easter eggs, we are sad to report that Tesla has gone completely and totally bankrupt. So bankrupt, you can’t believe it.”

To be sure, Musk has joked in the past and poked fun at critics. He often posts updates to his 21.5 million Twitter followers about his companies, retweets posts from happy customers and warns about artificial intelligence.

The heat is on for Tesla, but it remains to be seen if the CEO can handle it.

When asked by the Associated Press, a Tesla spokesman wouldn’t comment on Musk.