Tesla CEO Elon Musk Elon Reeve MuskWould becoming one of the first people to settle Mars be worth dying for? Hillicon Valley: Twitter flags Trump campaign tweet of Biden clip as manipulated media | Democrats demand in-person election security briefings resume | Proposed rules to protect power grid raise concerns Apple, Tesla stock splits surge market caps MORE dismissed concerns over the coronavirus on Friday, tweeting that panic over the disease was "dumb."

In a short tweet that was liked more than 1.6 million times, Musk wrote: "The coronavirus panic is dumb."

The coronavirus panic is dumb — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2020

His tweet comes as top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned that a large-scale outbreak of the disease occurring in the U.S. is possible in the coming weeks, and countries around the world have implemented quarantine and control procedures. More than 3,000 have died so far, with most of those deaths occurring in China, where the virus is believed to have originated.

Musk, 48, has a history of questionable social media choices, and was forced to settle with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 over a tweet he sent declaring that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share.

Nearly 110,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus have been reported around the world.