Tesla’s Crisis Wasn’t Inevitable—Musk Chose This Path
The NASDAQ fell 304.55 yesterday (1.71%), dragged down, in part, by Tesla, one of the day’s most active stocks, which fell $12.70 (5.34%). Protests against Tesla have spread all over the world and sales have virtually stopped.
James Sillars reported that “One of Tesla's earliest investors has told Sky News that Elon Musk should step aside as the carmaker's chief executive unless he gives up his new government job. Ross Gerber said in an interview with Sky's Business Live that the tycoon and adviser to Trump had lost his focus given his widening interests and was now too ‘divisive.’ He cited Musk's post-election role at the helm of the Trump administration's new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It has attracted public anger, and protests, over planned swingeing cuts to federal government staff. Gerber said: ‘I think Tesla needs a new CEO and I decided today I was going to start saying it and so this is the first show that I'm saying it on. It's time for somebody to run Tesla. The business has been neglected for too long. There are too many important things Tesla is doing, so either Elon should come back to Tesla and be the CEO of Tesla and give up his other jobs or he should focus on the government and keep doing what he is doing but find a suitable CEO of Tesla.’”
Gerber said “the business was ‘absolutely’ in crisis and the appointment was among several reasons he had sold off a substantial number of shares in recent months. A slump began shortly before Trump took office, as the first salvoes of the president's trade war were being threatened. Tesla's market value has plunged by more than $800 billion since December.”
The business has been struggling on several fronts.
Electric car demand appears to have peaked across key Western markets despite steep discounting to boost appeal at a time of continued strain on consumer budgets.
Also in the mix is cheap Chinese competition nibbling away at Tesla's market share.
Add the potential for heightened costs due to Trump's trade war, it is of little surprise that investors are concerned.
Gerber said that while Tesla's products were undoubtedly the best around, Musk only had 24 hours in the day and he had split his time too thinly since his purchase of Twitter in 2022.
He added that his social media posts and work with the president since had brought too much negative publicity to Tesla.
"The company's reputation has just been destroyed by Elon Musk," he said.
"Sales are plummeting so, yeah, it's a crisis. You literally can't sell the best product in the market place because the CEO is so divisive.”
Musk's downfall is a masterclass in self-inflicted destruction. What was once a visionary brand— synonymous with innovation and the clean energy future— has been dragged down by the erratic impulses of a man who cannot resist the gravitational pull of his own ego. He could have been remembered as the architect of the electric revolution. Instead, he is now little more than a right-wing agitator, sacrificing Tesla’s future for the fleeting thrill of political influence and online provocation.
His embrace of Trump and his role in dismantling the federal government have turned Tesla into a global pariah. The customers who once idolized Musk as a tech messiah now see him as a reactionary zealot, and even some of his staunchest investors are abandoning ship. The company’s collapse is not the result of market forces alone— it is the inevitable consequence of a CEO who mistook his own cult of personality for a business strategy.
“Tesla, wrote Rick Wilson this morning, “is no longer just a car company; it’s a bank for fascists, a goose-stepping hedge fund bankrolling the political fever dreams of Elon Musk and his DOGE dreams of controlling the ruins of the American government to launch his dreams of being the world’s first trillionaire and the Emperor of Mars. Musk’s power and wealth are inseparable from Tesla’s absurdly inflated stock price. If the Tesla bubble pops, so does Elon’s ability to keep throwing money around like a drunken Russian oligarch in a Macao casino.
Musk’s swashbuckling raids on the American government spawned lurid accusations of fraud, only to reveal that his so-called “cognitive elite” can’t read a balance sheet to save their lives. They’re too busy stuffing the idiot maws of the culture-war window-lickers with tales of Peruvian trans operas or similar nonsense. People are noticing that what DOGE is truly accomplishing is chaos, destruction, and firing of the parts and pieces of the government we need (air traffic controllers, VA doctors, etc.), all while planning to torch Social Security to the ground to pay for a tax cut for Elon and his friends.Elon’s bad behavior is Tesla’s burden to bear, and he’ll keep acting like America’s Mad Tech King because he feels like this can go on forever.
It can’t.
… Musk’s Tesla board, comprised of besties, bootlickers, and his brother are dumping their Tesla shares like they’ve seen the iceberg and are frantically looking for lifeboats. Robin Denholm, Trump’s all-time biggest fangirl, sold off $75 million in just a few weeks. That’s not exactly a gesture of confidence, folks.
The “Douchepanzer” (a.k.a. Cybertruck) might amuse a tiny sliver of wannabe Chad MAGA men with small-dick-energy fantasies, but it’s a shoddily built flop. The damn thing is literally glued together, and its alleged toughness has trouble surviving things like a carwash or a rainstorm.Meanwhile, Tesla’s aging Model 3, Y, S, and X feel about as fresh as 2017’s iPhone. You can only patch so many software updates onto a platform before buyers realize they’re paying top dollar for a product that has barely evolved since the pandemic started.
For all of Musk’s libertarian posturing, Tesla is a creature of government subsidies. If states like California decide to flex— pulling tax breaks, removing EV mandates, or refusing to buy Tesla fleets— it’ll cut a big chunk out of Elon’s war chest. Be sure to remind Republicans Elon has suckled at the teat of Ma Government like an eager little piggy as he’s accumulated his billions. And if you think he won’t squeal like a stuck pig, you haven’t been watching.
Big banks, hedge funds, state retirement funds, and other money titans are waking up to the risk and reputational stink clinging to Tesla. If they pull out, Musk’s rickety financial empire will wobble like a Jenga tower in an earthquake.
…It’s true that the front line in this war is still stopping Donald Trump from burning down Washington and using the Resolute Desk as kindling. But sometimes, you find a strategic weak point in the authoritarian vertical— like Tesla— where a single, well-placed shot shakes the entire edifice.
Tesla is Elon, and Elon is Tesla. You can’t separate them.
If we tear down that brand— if we make it socially and financially toxic— it won’t reduce Elon Musk to homelessness. Still, it’ll sure slow him down from more nine-figure spending sprees to resuscitate Trump’s political career and shred every norm left in our democracy.
It’ll send a thunderous warning to companies sniffing Trump’s ass like submissive dogs and to the politicians worshipping at Elon’s feet: the market can be weaponized against you, and politics is still downstream of culture. When the culture shifts, the money follows. And when the money goes, the illusions of genius and power vanish, leaving only the bitter whiff of hubris.
Break Tesla, break Elon. Break Elon, break Trump.
And maybe— just maybe— we save what’s left of our democracy by using the magic of the marketplace, not just politics.
Late yesterday, Vittoria Elliott reported that Musk hasn’t been using his time away from Tesla productively. DOGE, she wrote, “has spent the first six weeks of the new Trump administration turning the federal government upside down. It has moved from agency to agency, accessing sensitive data and payment systems, all on a supposed crusade to audit the government and stop fraud, waste, and abuse. DOGE has posted some of its “findings” on its website, many of which have been revealed to be errors. But two federal auditors with years of experience, who have both worked on financial and technical audits for the government, say that DOGE’s actions are the furthest thing from what an actual audit looks like… ‘Honestly, comparing real auditing to what DOGE is doing, there’s no comparison,’ says one of the auditors who spoke to Wired allege that not only is Musk’s claim not true, but also that DOGE appears to have completely eschewed the existing processes for actually rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Musk's legacy will not be of a genius who changed the world, but of a man who had everything— wealth, influence and the power to shape the future— and threw it all away for a seat at Trump’s doomed table.
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