Tesla boss Elon Musk has launched a tirade of criticism against the current lockdown order in California, calling it “fascist”.

The Tesla Fremont factory, in the San Francisco Bay area, has remained idle since March 24 and local officials recently ordered ‘shelter-in-place’ to extend through to the end of May.

Musk, on the company's first-quarter earnings call with journalists, unloaded on his state's current order for people to remain in homes to halt the spread of the Covid-19, says Automotive News.

Tesla has reported its third-consecutive quarterly profit — even as the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered its assembly plants in the USA and China.

Musk had hoped to have record first-quarter delivery of Teslas but the lockdown has prevented that, with the CEO calling it “fascist”, dropping multiple expletives and railing against what he called an infringement on individual freedoms, says Automotive News.

"Frankly, I would call it forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights, in my opinion," Musk said.

 "Breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to America or built this country. What the f---?"

Musk argued people shouldn't be told to remain in their homes, falsely saying orders call for the arrest of people who venture outside. Most shelter-in-place orders still allow people to go outside for exercise or for essential services, such as groceries, says Automotive News.

"This is fascist," Musk said. "This isn't democratic. This isn't freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom."

Shortly after Musk’s tirade, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that the state “is flattening the curve because folks are staying home. Practicing physical distancing. We aren’t out of the woods yet. We must continue to take this seriously and allow our re-opening to be guided by science and public health”.