Elon Musk faces calls to resign over Walmart solar fires

Elon Musk is facing calls from short sellers to resign as Tesla chief executive over allegations that its solar panels caused numerous fires at Walmart stores.

Tesla has come under pressure from Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn, who took to Twitter to call for “Elon Musk to resign” over the recent legal dispute between his company and Walmart.

How many solar panels are still defective and could cause fires? @Tesla should
immediately notify the people who live in and work in buildings at risk. Secret
Project Titan is over the line. A recall should have happened long ago @USCPSC.
@Elonmusk should resign.

— David Einhorn (@davidein) August 23, 2019

Earlier this week Tesla’s stock dipped more than one per cent after Walmart accused it of breach of contract, gross negligence and failure to live up to industry standards in a lawsuit filed in the state of New York.

READ MORE: Walmart sues Tesla after 7 of its stores catch fire

The US retail giant is calling for Tesla to remove the solar panels from more than 240 stores on which they’re currently installed and pay damages related to the fires, going on to detail evacuations, damaged property and damaged inventory.

Walmart goes on to accuse Tesla of routinely sending out solar engineers who “lacked basic solar training and knowledge” and failing to properly ground the electrical systems.

Yesterday the two companies released a joint statement saying that they “look forward to addressing all issues and re-energising Tesla solar installations at Walmart stores once all parties are certain that all concerns have been addressed.”

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