Summary
Tesla faces a second consecutive year of sales decline after a 13% drop in Q1 2024 deliveries, the steepest in nearly three years.
CEO Elon Musk’s alignment with Donald Trump and far-right politics has damaged Tesla’s brand, triggering global protests and vandalism.
Analysts attribute the sales slide primarily to reputational harm, compounded by aging models and fierce competition from BYD and others.
Deutsche Bank forecasts a 5% sales dip this year. Musk’s political role has fueled calls for boycotts, with concerns that prolonged involvement could cause lasting brand damage.
Sure they can. Anything Musk provided can be done without Musk. He’s not that integral, especially now.
I think you kinda missed the point. To fire him would be admitting he isn’t anything special which also means neither is Tesla. Ford had $48BB in Q4 revenue and trades for around $10/share. Tesla had $25BB in Q4 revenue, yet trades for $240/share. Without Elon, Tesla is just another car company and would likely lose over $230/share. They can never fire Elon. They are paid in shares. The only thing they care about is that number and absolutely nothing else.
Share price isn’t a useful number since the quantity of shares is not equal between the two.
Ford’s cumulative stock value (market cap) is about $38 on $185 in revenue (in billions)
Tesla’s cumulative stock value is $860 on $97 in revenue (in billions)
So Tesla is trading on a value that is 2200% that of Ford on 50% of the revenue.
That only occurs because Musk is a running the largest confidence scheme in history.