Elon Musk Is Running Out Of Ideas To Save Tesla
www.forbes.com
He's dialing down his DOGE role but Tesla needs a new hit EV and none is on the horizon. And the company’s booming battery business will suffer from Trump’s tariffs.

Summary

Tesla reported its worst quarterly results in four years, with Q1 income down 71% and EV sales falling 13%.

Elon Musk vowed to refocus on Tesla amid backlash over his political role in the Trump Administration’s DOGE program, but analysts doubt his return will fix worsening issues.

Tesla faces eroding market share, failed products like the Cybertruck, and a coming 145% tariff on imported Chinese battery cells set to hammer the company’s battery pack business, one of the only bright spots last quarter.

Musk’s pivot to robotaxis and humanoid robots lacks credibility, and critics say Tesla has no compelling new EVs to revive growth.

    • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      4·
      21 days ago

      I’m not a stock market person. I know fuck all about it.

      But I’ve been watching the stock for a while now, and that’s the only conclusion I can come to. Someone has to be buying shit loads of the stock to keep it afloat.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
    23·
    21 days ago

    You can’t un-ring being a Nazi and I won’t be buying another Tesla with or without a Nazi at the helm because we all know even if he ‘steps down’ his fortune will still be tied to his stock ownership.

    Nazi Around, Find Out

    • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
      54·
      21 days ago

      That’s not enough. As long as Musk owns even one share of Tesla, he makes money each time a Tesla car sells, and a lot of people including I can’t stomach that.

      I might consider purchasing a Tesla vehicle if I knew Musk doesn’t get any of my money. As long as he gets even one cent of my money, I’ll buy some other brand.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        44·
        21 days ago

        The whole board and major investors condoned this. Fuck the whole brand. Now and forever. They don’t need to be redeemed if they do the right thing, we’ll be fine without them. The smart people that actually make things happen will go work for better companies.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      20 days ago

      If he resigns, Tesla becomes just another car company. Car companies get a P/E ratio of 7 (if they’re well run). Tesla’s P/E ratio is above 160. Elon Musk’s “genius” leadership is how Tesla investors have convinced themselves that they’re not investing in a typical car company. If he goes, the stock tanks. But, then again, if he stays, the stock tanks because he’s clearly not a genius, and even if he was he’s an evil genius and people don’t want to buy cars associated with his brand.

  • boughtmysoul@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    21 days ago

    So let me get this straight.

    Elon Musk is the reason Tesla is tanking and his solution is more of him?

    How many Ds of Chess is this? I’ve lost track.

    • vxx@lemmy.world
      14·
      20 days ago

      Tesla is a person cult.

      If any other company had such earning reports and a disatrous earnings call like tesla did, it would go down at least 30%. Tesla went up 30.

      Sure, it’s possibly the most manipulated stock on the market, and regulators get axed, so we even don’t know how much of the cult is left and how much is coming from billionaires pockets that pump and dump all day to get the money of the hopeful.

      There will be a hard line where the Pool of idiots with money to rob dried out and they crash harder than Theranos.

  • aceshigh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    21 days ago

    Let’s see what kind of a genius businessman musk is. My dad thinks that all billionaires are smart. Prove him right musk! Save Tesla from yourself.

  • burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world
    4·
    21 days ago

    one thing to consider is that tesla does not make its money by selling cars, but by selling carbon credits to other companies

    • frezik@midwest.social
      6·
      21 days ago

      It’s a major part of their profit margin, but even with their decline this quarter, they’d eek out a profit without it.

      https://carboncredits.com/teslas-carbon-credit-revenue-soars-to-2-76-billion-amid-profit-drop/

      In Q4 2024 alone, Tesla earned $692 million from selling regulatory credits or carbon credits, accounting for nearly 30% of its quarterly net income of $2.33 billion.

      At least for now, they’re keeping their financial head above water even without carbon credits. Of course, no business would willingly throw away 30% of its net income.

      The big thing for them is that those credits are free profit. Other car companies have to buy them to make up for their ICE cars. Tesla doesn’t sell a single ICE car, so everything they make comes with a credit. Mind you, as the market transitions away from ICE, those will naturally evaporate from the company’s ledger.

      • OutlierBlue@lemmy.caEnglish
        4·
        21 days ago

        I agree with your comment, but FYI:

        they’d eek out a profit

        eke

        • to make (a living) or support (existence) laboriously:
        • to eke out an income with odd jobs.
    • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
      2·
      20 days ago

      I may be misunderstanding, but don’t they have to sell cars to have the carbon credits to sell? So tanked sales = fewer credits.

  • barneypiccolo@lemm.eeEnglish
    16·
    21 days ago

    We hadn’t heard much from him over the past few weeks, and now we get this earnings call, and it is far worse than expected. He’s known this was coming, and has been laying low, probably hoping things will improve some before making what he knows would be a disastrous earnings call. Its the equivalent of watching your diet 3 days before a doctor’s appointment, hoping your weight gain and cholesterol increase won’t be as bad as you know it is.

    Also, it’s a safe bet that his board of directors is livid, and that he has been ordered by his board to get back to work, or be removed as CEO of Tesla.

    There is almost certainly a shareholder class-action suit brewing over his reckless and irresponsible behavior over the last several months, which has directly caused severe, and probably irreparable damage to the company’s brand image AND it’s sales around the world, as well as tanking the stock price, an unforgiveable sin in the investing world. Now that the bubble has popped, it will never inflate again. As future earnings reports are released, and sales continue to slide, the stock will continue to decline, and the cycle will continue until bankruptcy. And it is all traceable to Skum’s self-indulgent, egotistical behavior.

    The only question is will Skum be the only defendant, or will the lawsuit also name the individual members of the board, for not reigning him in, or firing him. They don’t want to be sued alongside him, so they are forcing him to get back to work saving Tesla, thus letting them off the hook for legal liability.

    Its doubtful Skum will be able to save Tesla at this point, its almost certainly too late. It is also probably too late to avoid a shareholder lawsuit. Investors have lost millions of dollars, not due to the vagaries of the market, but due to Skum’s outrageous behavior, like throwing up celebratory Nazi salutes on national TV, which, as CEO, he should have realized would damage his company and its investors significantly.

    And arguing that he didn’t recognize the danger in advance is no excuse at all for a CEO, who should have been able to predict the response to his self-indulgent ego bender.

    Shareholders have lost many millions, and they won’t just let that go with an “Oh well.” He’s likely going to get sued, and the board is just making sure they don’t go down with him.

    I give Tesla two years before they file for bankruptcy, and I’m only giving it that long because HitlerPig will give him a bail out that will buy him a little time.

  • OutlierBlue@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    21 days ago

    Elon Musk vowed to refocus on Tesla

    We already know his management meddling wrecks things and that his workers generally prefer him to back off and let them work effectively. This can only make thing worse for his businesses.

  • wirebeads@lemmy.caEnglish
    30·
    21 days ago

    Who cares. Tesla is run by a Nazi. It doesn’t deserve to survive. Musk doesn’t give a shit about the environment or saving it. He only cares about his bank balance.

    🖕Musk 🖕Tesla 🖕Nazis