TSLA Tesla Inc

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)

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