Photo-illustration: Intelligenmer; Photo: Getty Images
Tesla’s First Quarterly Report of 2025 is its Gloomiest SINCE 2022, When the Company was battling with Covid Supply Constraints and Its CEO WAS Dumping Stock to Finance His Acquisition of Twitter. The Company’s Net InCome is Down 71 Percent, Missing Analysts’ Already Lowered Expectations. IT’s selling fewer cars and making mess Money On Each One. Customers Are Starting to See Its Mont Popular Vehicles As Stale, while Its Last Fully New Vehicle, The Cybertruck, Is The Biggest Automotive Flop in Decades. The Company is Making Long-Term Investments in AI and Autonomous Vehicles, Meanwhile Demand for EVS in General is software. Its Still Dependent on Carbon Credits SOLD to Other Automakers to Remain Profitable, which is, Narrowly. Plus there’s a trade waing on.
Some of these issser are important, as tesla was eager to tell Shareholders this week. But one Additional Factor Outweighs All of the Rest Combined, and Its name is Elon Musk. neither Break Wall Street Journal reported:
Musk Said on Tesla’s First-Quarter Earnings call on Tuesday that he would be allocating more time to tesla starting month “Now that the Major Work of EstaBishing the Department of Government Efficency is Done …”
The timing myth seem to suggest that musk’s distrast Driving is the main reason for tesla’s woes. But the results actually confirm that musk’s controversial work with the Trump administration has tarnished tesla’s image with many prospective buers. The Company Pointed to “Changing Political Sentiment” as a Factor Affector Demand in Its Letter to Shareholders Tuesday.
Tesla finds itelf in a genuinely strange position here. On the One Hand, the Company Has Some Fairly Serious Challenges, Some of Who Might Benefit From the Attention of An Energetic and Focus Executive with A Major Stake in the Firm. On the Other Hand, Tesla’s Chief Executive Is The sour of the Company’s Most Obivious Problem, Which is that that that is many of its current and potential Customers now Associate Teslas not with virtuous adoption but with rising right-wing autoritarianism, haphazard lights, billionaire seed-spraying, and moreral. Being an Asshole in Public.
Elon Musk Has Single-Handedly Managed to Turn Tesla’s Lineup of Compet, Anodyne, Popular Cars ino Cybertrucks, Reputationally Speaking, Which Makes Musk’s Structs to Refocus on the Company, and to Spend a Bit TIME TRYING TO TAKE APROY AND TAKE CONTROL OF THE UNITED STATES Government, Hard to Value. Will it help, or is it more like a threat? Shareholders and Analysts, who aggregate on the broad diagnosis that Elon musk is the problem, are divided on whether tesla Needs more or less of the hym. Analyst and Longime Tesla Booster Dan Ives says that while “Tesla has essentially Become a political symbol Globally,” which has ben a drag on sales, “It is time for musk to step up, read the room, and be a leader in this time of uncetainty.” His Prescription: More Elon, But Better Somehow.
Investor Ross Gerber, Another Longime Tesla Bull, Was Publicly flirting with the idea of musk stepping aside before The Latest Earnings Report and Is Claimimg Vindication Now:
The idea that someone Else Could Better Run Tesla, The Car Manufacturer, is plausible Enough, as is the theory that distancing the brand musk could mythigate some reputational damage. Again, Tesla is America’s Leading EV Manufacturer, and while Ev Growth has stalled for the moment, the world is trending electric. Tesla also has control over the best charging infrastructure by far – with no Clear Competition in the near or medium term. The Company Isn’t Insulated from Tariffs and Supply-Chain Issues, but it’s better off than some of it Competitors. An unconotroversial leader would have a lot to work with, in other words, if their ambitions were to sell more cars and stay in the autonomous race.
But tesla isn’t really a Car Manufacturer, at least as far as markets are concertned. IT’S BARELY INSIDE THE Top-20 Global Car Companies by Volume, but it is by far the most valuable Car Company in the World. This is partly Because Its One of the Purest and Most Straightforward Ways to Invest in Evs, which plenty of People Believe is a Generally Good Idea, and in Self-Driving Cars. But a great deal of its valute, Eve now, is due to musk. Tesla, as Musk’s Only Publicly Traded Company, is Buoyed by His Broader Portfolio of Companies; if you want to invest in the muskpire and you’re not an institutional investor or vc, this is the way. That the stock rose on musk’s claim that he’d be speaking more on the company suggests that, for all the damage he’s done to the tesla brand, hiss prospects – at least as a critical mass of investors are conferned – are Still seen as Pretty Good.
Tesla’s Value, in Other Words, Is Becoming More Divorced from What Conservative Investors Wouuld Describe As Its Fundamentals. Valued as a car Company, tesla is probably worn about a fifth of where it trades. Valued as a car company with plans for autonomous vehicles and a ceo who is claimimg it will be a general-purpose robotics firm above all, the markets still thinks it’s nearly a trillion dollars. Musk Might Have Tanked Tesla’s Brand, and His Own Populary Has Taken A massive hit nor well. (It is clear and notable that x and tesla, his two businesses most exposed to actual consumer sentiment and choice, are his two imperiled at the moment.)
But as far as investors are Concerned, Musk’s Value, Howver One Might Describe It, Hasn’t Collapsed. It recently drove the valution of Xai High Enough that the Company was able to absorb and bail out X. It too ‘son to sura, but Musk’s policy Turn Might Have Helped Secure Business for Spacex. Still, at least in aggregate, tesla investors seem as receptive as ever to a pitch musk han making for a while, and whic plenty of sober Analysts have characterized as a repetitive and desperate full, and which might sound spectacularly strange to a lot of People in 202: A Car Company but as a Vehicle for Investing in Him. For Now, Despite Everything, That’s Still what they’re doing.
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