"I didn't mean anything by it," insisted Jim Cramer. "I didn't mean to provoke a fight."
Nonetheless, a flight ensued.
Events seem relatively harmless at first glance. All that happened is the Mad Money host posted this picture on his Twitter account. It's not a particularly provocative picture. In fact it seems rather unremarkable.
It's simply a picture of an i3, a new electric car recently introduced by BMW, parked curbside.
And Cramer simply wrote "Move over Tesla"
However, "The result was a firestorm of Tweets about how I didn't know what I was doing, about how unattractive the darned thing is and how it would never even be a threat to Tesla's dominance. The provocation pretty much derailed my whole Twitter feed as follower after follower denied that the i3 could ever supplant the Tesla. The most common refrains? Hideous. Impractical. Laughable."
What many people didn't realize is that the photo is actually a re-Tweet, of a photo first taken by Anton Wahlman someone Cramer called "one of the great observers of Silicon Valley." And Wahlman's comments were far more incendiary than Cramer's.
He said, "This was the scene outside my weekend breakfast/coffee place shortly after 7am today. All the Teslas are gone, just like the wide lapels and wide ties from 1974."
In his words, " as a fashion statement is sooo April 2014."
Cramer can only imagine what kind of response that commentary might have provoked.
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And although he appreciates a heated debate, the tone of the replies sparked by his Tweet worries Cramer.
He believes the response reflects the deep passion investors feel for Tesla. And although Cramer believes passion is warranted in many areas of life, he doesn't think it has any place near a stock investment.
"The vociferous nature of the love for the stock is something I never like to see. It is just a huge red flag."
That is, when there's so much emotion involved in an investment, rational catalysts are often trumped by irrational exuberance, making it next to impossible to anticipate advances and declines in the underlying shares.
In those kinds of circumstances, Cramer prefers to put money to work elsewhere.
And for those investors who are among the Tesla faithful, rather than fly to Tesla's defense, Cramer suggests examining developments in a cool and collected manner.
"Here's what it says to me. If you own the stock of Tesla understand that, like it or not, there's another player that represents an alternative that could cut into Tesla's sales. It might not, but then again, BMW is an amazing company, so it might."
That's just how Cramer sees it - nothing more and nothing less. If you don't like it, we can always take it outside.
Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC
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