By Robert Wall
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk, who has repeatedly played
down the risk of the coronavirus since early in the pandemic, says
he tested both positive and negative for Covid-19 on Thursday and
raised questions about the validity of such testing more
broadly.
Mr. Musk, on Twitter, said he was experiencing cold-like
symptoms and, when taking four of the same tests administered on
the same machine, had two results come back positive and two
negative.
"Something extremely bogus is going on," he said.
The symptoms he was experiencing, he said, were "nothing unusual
so far." Later, he tweeted he had experienced "Mild sniffles &
cough & slight fever past few days," though was not feeling any
symptoms after taking over-the-counter cold medicine.
If a diagnosis is confirmed, Mr. Musk would become one of
several CEOs to reveal they contracted the virus. Morgan Stanley
CEO James Gorman, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell and Hewlett-Packard
Enterprise Co. CEO Antonio Neri revealed positive diagnoses earlier
this year.
Howard Willard, former CEO of Altria Group Inc., took a
temporary medical leave after a positive diagnosis in March and
announced his retirement in April after a rocky two-year tenure
leading the Marlboro maker.
Through the pandemic, management teams have worked to fortify
succession plans and review backup operating plans when critical
employees fall ill.
In March, Mr. Musk predicted there would likely be close to zero
new Covid-19 cases in the U.S. by the end of April. In March, the
outspoken CEO said "my guess is that the panic will cause more harm
than the virus, if that hasn't happened already."
Mr. Musk disclosed the test results soon after a rocket being
developed by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. that he also runs
failed on a test stand in Texas. A different SpaceX rocket awaits a
planned Saturday launch at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida
to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Friday said it was the
agency's policy that when someone tests positive they self-isolate
and that it was looking to SpaceX to handle any appropriate contact
tracing. It was still early to determine whether any plans around
the launch would be altered, he said, adding at a press conference
that "if there are adjustments that need to be made, we will make
them."
The astronauts scheduled to launch on the Falcon 9 rocket have
been quarantining and, Mr. Bridenstine said, he wasn't aware of any
contact between them and Mr. Musk. The crew, he said, "should be in
good shape."
Mr. Musk's latest tweets also came as positive U.S. Covid-19
tests reached a record. On Thursday, Alameda County, near San
Francisco -- where Tesla's lone U.S. car factory is based -- warned
of rising coronavirus cases and potential new restrictions to
combat the disease. County health officials earlier this year
ordered Tesla to temporarily close the car plant.
On an earnings call in April, with the U.S. plant shut, Mr. Musk
railed against local shelter-in-place restrictions aimed at slowing
the spread of the virus.
"Give people back their goddamn freedom," he said.
When Tesla reopened the Fremont plant in May it had put in place
safety protocols that county officials inspected. Workers have
reported instances of Covid-19 cases among workers at the facility,
though neither Tesla nor local authorities have commented on the
scale of infection among the vehicle maker's staff.
The four Covid-19 results Mr. Musk said he received Thursday
came from rapid-response tests. He said he was taking a more
thorough PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, test -- typically
involving a nasal or throat swab -- at a separate laboratory and
was expecting to get results in about 24 hours.
The test, which Mr. Musk said was from Becton, Dickinson &
Co., is one of several authorized antigen tests, which search for
virus proteins in patient samples and can deliver a result in about
15 minutes. The tests tend to be less precise than laboratory-based
PCR tests. But they are good at identifying those that have higher
viral loads and are likely most infectious, public-health experts
say.
"We are aware of the tweet and are reaching out to learn more
consistent with our quality management process," a spokeswoman for
BD said in a statement. "We stand by the quality, utility and
science of our system and assay. There are many factors that could
lead to a discordant result, including a low viral load."
False positives and false negatives can occur with any clinical
test. False negative results, or failing to pick up a present
infection, are more common with antigen tests, but false positives
can also occur. Public-health authorities sometimes recommend a
confirmatory PCR test and say that test results should be looked at
in conjunction with other pieces of information, such as symptoms
and potential exposure.
Tesla shares were down about 2% Friday afternoon.
Despite the turmoil of recent months and the wider global
economic slowdown from the pandemic, Tesla has been navigating the
health crisis with little apparent impact. Vehicles deliveries in
the second quarter fell compared with the year-ago period.
The pandemic at one point threatened to derail Mr. Musk's plan
to boost Tesla deliveries by about 36% this year with the closure
of the plant. Mr. Musk fought to reopen the factory and Tesla last
month said its goal of delivering more than 500,000 vehicles this
year could still be attainable. The company is on track to post its
first full-year profit in 2020 despite the pandemic, according to
analyst estimates.
--Bowdeya Tweh contributed to this article.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 13, 2020 14:04 ET (19:04 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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