Elon Musk has denied signing any contract yet with car rental company Hertz, which announced a massive deal that raised Tesla's market value to more than $1 trillion.
Tesla shares rose 12.6 percent last week, after Hertz announced that it had ordered 100,000 cars by the end of 2022.
But Musk wrote on Twitter: "I would like to stress that we haven't signed any contract yet."
Despite this, Hertz told the BBC that "delivery of the cars has already begun".
"As we announced last week, Hertz has ordered 100,000 electric vehicles from Tesla and is currently investing in a network of car charging stations, globally," a company spokesperson said.
Hertz refused to confirm signing a contract with Tesla, in light of Musk's tweet, adding that it does not discuss the details of its business relations.
- big deal
The deal announced by Hertz is the largest electric vehicle order in history by a car rental company.
"Electric cars have become the norm today," said Mark Fields, Acting Director of Hertz Corporation. "We are seeing increased demand and interest in them worldwide."
It is reported that Hertz will pay $4.2 billion to acquire 100,000 Model 3s vehicles over the next 14 months, which is a fifth of its fleet. The company will also build a network of charging stations.
"From the beginning of November until the end of the year," Hertz said, customers can rent Tesla Model 3s cars in a number of neighborhoods and locations in Europe and the United States.
But the Tesla CEO wrote Tuesday on Twitter: "Demand for Tesla is far outstripping production. Therefore, we will sell cars to Hertz at the same margin we sell to consumers."
Tesla became the fifth company with a market value of more than one trillion dollars on October 25, after Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, which owns Google.
In response to a tweet about the Hertz deal on October 25, Musk said it was "strange that this affected the valuation, as Tesla is facing a drag in production rather than demand."
He later added, "I would like to clarify that the cars we sell to Hertz are not subject to any discounts. The prices are the same as those paid by the consumer."
This is not the first time that Musk's comments about his company have made headlines.
In 2020, he dropped $14 billion from the automaker's market value, after he wrote on Twitter that its shares were too expensive.
Two years earlier, his tweet about Tesla's future on the New York Stock Exchange prompted the regulator to fine the company $20 million, and Musk also agreed to delete other tweets on the site.
Tesla announced Tuesday the launch of a pilot project of 10 "premium charging stations" in the Netherlands that will be available for all electric vehicles.
As part of the plan to expand its network of stations, the company said that opening charging stations to non-drivers is "an important issue, in order to expand the adoption of electric cars."
Tesla had to recall 11,704 vehicles due to an issue that caused its software to set off a false collision alert or apply the emergency brake.
The US Highway Safety Administration said it "is not aware of any accidents or injuries" due to this problem. And Tesla is working to address the problem.
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