Futures slide after Musk’s warning on economy By Reuters

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures fell on Friday, after Tesla (NASDAQ:) CEO Elon Musk said he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy, fueling fresh worries that aggressive policy tightening by the Federal Reserve could tip the economy into a recession.

Tesla Inc shares fell 3.4% in premarket trading after Musk said he wants to cut about 10% of jobs at the electric-car maker, and warned about the economy in an email to executives seen by Reuters.

The tech-heavy turned negative and were last down 79.25 points, or 0.61%.

“Musk has a tendency to say exactly what he thinks and believes, and he does have a fair point,” said Fiona Cincotta, senior financial markets analyst at City Index.

“Although the Fed thinks a soft landing is possible, I do think there are some warning signs in the economy. The question is will they be able to act as aggressively as they need to … Musk doesn’t think that they’re going to be able to without putting the economy into a deep recession.”

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon earlier this week described the challenges facing the U.S. economy as akin to a “hurricane”.

Wall Street’s main indexes have sold off sharply this year, with the Nasdaq shedding over 20% so far this year on growing recession fears as the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates aggressively to combat soaring inflation.

At 05:44 a.m. ET, were down 92 points, or 0.28% and were down 16 points, or 0.38%.