Elon Musk posted one tweet and Tesla shares went haywire

Tesla stock leapt 4 per cent after Musk promised a new mystery product

CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk (Getty)

It only took one tweet from Tesla founder Elon Musk to boost the share price of the car company some 4 per cent on Monday, from $181.50 to $192.25. The jump underlined the social media influence of the controversial CEO over his investors and 1.8 million Twitter followers.

Musk's tweet added some $900 million to Tesla’s market capitalisation, a measure of the size but not necessarily the worth of a company.

Source: Thomson Reuters

The message has since been retweeted over 7000 times, prompting speculation about the new mystery product. Many believe it is a home battery that can power houses and help large-scale utilities store energy more efficiently. Musk said in February that his plans for a home battery were complete and would be unveiled in a couple of months.

An April Fools ’ Day prank prompted another share wobble on Wednesday. A press release announcing the release of yet another new product – the Tesla Model W captioned ‘It’s a watch. That’s what the W stands for’ – was revealed as fake, but not before the stock got a 0.75 per cent boost. Nearly 400,000 shares were traded before the stock retraced again.