Elon Musk said on Monday he had “allegedly” tested positive for Covid-19 with no major symptoms.
“I supposedly have it again (sigh), but almost no symptoms,” said the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire called in a tweet.
He also said: “Covid-19 is the virus of Theseus. How many gene changes before it’s no longer Covid-19?”
In philosophy, the Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment that asks if something is the same after all its components have been changed.
Coronavirus variants have emerged during the two-year pandemic. More than 976,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University. Case numbers have fallen, but officials have warned of possible increases fueled by variants or sub-variants.
In November 2020, Musk questioned the accuracy of Covid-19 tests after claiming the results showed he tested positive twice and then negative twice on the same day.
Musk then said he “most likely” had a moderate case of Covid-19. He didn’t mention whether the results came from polymerase chain reaction tests, which are more accurate than rapid tests.
Musk was recently spotted dancing and joking with fans while overseeing the handover of Tesla’s first German-made cars at the Gruenhide plant last week.
The Tesla factory in Shanghai will close for four days after the city announced it will go on lockdown for nine days to test residents for Covid-19 as cases rise in China.
The plant is vital to Tesla’s exports and delivered more than 56,000 cars in February, or more than 2,000 cars a day.
Tesla has recently hiked the prices of its cars citing inflationary pressures and said it would not launch any new models this year due to supply chain headwinds.