Elon Musk warns employees Tesla's stock could 'get crushed like a soufflé under a sledgehammer' - CNN

After years of losses Tesla has now reported five straight quarters of positive net income.

But in an email to employees Musk acknowledged that Tesla's actual profit margin is fairly low, only about 1%, and that the stock price is due to investor expectations of future profits rather than recent results.

"If, at any point, they conclude that's not going to happen, our stock will immediately get crushed like a soufflé under a sledgehammer!" he wrote in the email, which was first reported by Electrek.

Musk was responding to the fact that Tesla is worth more than five times as much as Volkswagen (VLKAF), the world's largest automaker in terms of sales.

Doepfner asked if Musk would consider using Tesla's lofty stock price to buy an established automaker and although Musk said he's not looking to do that, he wouldn't rule it out.

"We're definitely not going to launch a hostile takeover," he said.