Shares in Tesla fell by as much as 9% on the same day the electric car maker lost two executives and its boss was filmed smoking cannabis during an interview.

Tech tycoon Elon Musk sipped whiskey, smoked weed and suggested "love is the answer" to humanity's woes as he appeared on a two-hour podcast with comedian Joe Rogan.

The YouTube interview came as Dave Morton, Tesla's chief accounting officer, stood down and Gabrielle Toledano, the firm's human resources chief, told Bloomberg she also planned to leave Tesla.

During the podcast, Musk spoke about artificial intelligence, colonising space and the need to "give love a chance".

He even described the constant flow of ideas in his mind as "a never ending explosion" and said that as a young boy he worried he might be "insane" as it did not seem to happen to others around him.


Along with his electric car company, Musk heads up space exploration firm Space X, tunnel construction firm The Boring Company, and Neuralink, which works on augmenting human brains with artificial intelligence.

"I don't think you would necessarily want to be me - you wouldn't like it that much," Musk told Rogan during the live-streamed podcast. "It might be great when it is turned on, but what if it doesn't turn off."

The comedian offered the 47-year-old billionaire a marijuana and tobacco cigarette, which are legal in the state of California.

"It's legal right?" Musk asked, before Rogan said it was "totally legal" and the entrepreneur took a drag of the cigarette.

Musk added: "I'm not a regular smoker of weed - almost never... I don't find that it's very good for productivity. It is sort of like a cup of coffee in reverse."

He said accomplishing things and being useful to others kept him going, as he urged others to spend less time on social media.

"A lot of people don't like humanity and think it is a blight, but I don't," he said. "It may sound corny, but love is the answer. Spend more time with your friends and less time on social media."

Speaking about his presence on Twitter, the inventor said he only used it because of its power to convey messages and that he largely ignored negative comments aimed at him.

Image: Musk said marijuana was not good for productivity. Pic: YouTube/PowerfulJRE

Musk said he was not as worried about artificial intelligence than he was previously after "taking a more fatalistic attitude".

He had previously argued it would be detrimental to the existence of humanity but conceded the future of artificial intelligence was now outside of human control.

Speaking of the what lies ahead, Musk said being forever constrained to Earth "would not be a good future".

He said: "I think the future in where we are a space-faring civilisation out there among the stars, that is very exciting."

The Tesla share price closed down 6%.