Elon Musk is running out of ideas to save Tesla
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.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2025/04/25/elon-musk-is-running-out-of-ideas-to-save-tesla/Open linkView original on lemmy.world506
Comments161
Has he considered resigning?
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.
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.
He handpicked the board
Exactly. Fuck them.
From life...
Follow_Your_Leader.jpeg
Player_2_joined_the_Mario_game.jpg
Reinstate Eberhard and Tarpenning.
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.
Weird way to say fuck off to Mars.
There are other, indirect ways to hurt Tesla.
For example, when I call a cab, I tell the dispatcher I don't want to ride in a Tesla taxi. And one dispatcher a few weeks ago told me I wasn't the only one requesting that.
Tesla doesn’t need him to refocus, the damage is done. He fucked it all up trying to impress everyone at 4 chan with his nazi salutes, deal with it chainsaw performance, firing thousands of people nonchalant, etc.
As long as he’s tied to the brand in any way it’s cooked.
But he looked cool wearing the cheese head before he fucked up his attempt to corrupt the Wisconsin judiciary, right?
He had to emphasize on the Roman salute twice
What a fucking loser
Goodbye, Tesla, and good riddance. Some salutes will never be forgotten.
It's all fun and games until your billion dollar company gets taken down.
Become a Nazi lose your company. You have been warned.
I'm afraid we need a good ryme, or a 3 word chant in order for it to actually resonate... anyone got a go woke go broke equivelant for nazi's or white supremacists.
Go nazi go kamikaze?
go fash, lose cash
Go Fascist get your ass kicked?
Go Musk, go bust?
Die nazi
Nazi Punks Fuck Off
At our march they were chanting
No Nazis! No kings!
These are not American things!
Good stuff.
He's tried nothing and Is all out ideas.
Is It Elon that is wrong? No it must be the consumers!
He threw Sieg Heils and is now out of ideas
Ok, hear me out, maybe what he needs is lots more sieg heils? It worked for that mustache dude 70ish years ago, hitler.
If hitler had given up after just 2 sieg heils then not many people would know his name. Come on, Muskrat, show some belief in yourself!!
Does negging his customers count as an idea?
One thing that must be made clear to casual observers is that the Tesla stock price is still batshit crazy high.
The logic to support the price is:
Your are not buying the current company, you are buying the cool stuff Elon is making in the future.
Without that leap of faith, the price has to collapse. There is no way an electric car company will ever support even the current stock price.
There will be a tremendous amount of copium ingested before gravity hits, but the bigger fool theory will have its way.
I wonder how many people have gone broke trying to short Tesla. It just doesn't make sense, but apparently the market has an infinite ability to be irrational.
Textbook example of "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
Earnings report is really bad ... stock price surges! Make it make sense.
Step down from Doge, open the files and lay bare this administration.
Offer to buyback every single Cybertruck.
Appoint a board of directors elected by Tesla employees, with representatives from each department to manage the long term goals and policy of Tesla.
Make a low cost, highly configurable electric car. Essentially an electric 90's Civic.
Or better yet. Pay me 500 million a year and I'll do all of this for you.
The first disassembly line to recover the materials from the swastidumpter. Ha ha!
Nah, I would have the company buy them all back, repair and rebuild them with better parts. In 10 years they'll be legendary like Deloreans, then quietly open up orders for them.
It's a win-win. People who want out of the truck now get their money back. The company and die-hard CT fans make a killing when these things become somewhat rare and collectible.
No, no. Finally build that new roadster and trucks! :)
Has he tried stop being a cunt?
Way too late for that. Too many potential customers will now never buy a Tesla as long as he’s associated with the brand in any way. About the only option he has to try to save the brand is to sever all ties with the company and walk away. But his ego will never allow that.
I would buy a tesla, but only if they fire/disown musk, undo every trace of him, and do a complete 180 politically. Oh and make the cars suck way less.
Even in a very optimistic timeline it would take years for Tesla cars to suck less. I don’t think Tesla has that kind of time any more, now that there’s growing competition from big automakers like Honda & Toyota as well as Hyundai, Volkswagen, etc. and all the other EV companies like Rivian.
Those established automakers have a long history of innovating & listening to customers. As their expansion into the EV market grows, they’re going to put a lot of pressure on Tesla to innovate as well, and that doesn’t mean bowing to whatever whims the CEO has.
Honda and Toyota are flopping HARD on EVs. Their EVs suck, like worst in the market suck. Hyundai / Kia are doing a great job, and VW is boring but okay (now after fixing the 3.0 software debacle).
I wish rivian and lucid had more funding, cause their cars are top notch, but the companies have growth pains.
I can't speak to Honda's current line up, but my Clarity PHEV is fricken' amazing. Best car I've ever owned.
I was speaking specifically about BEVs, since we are comparing to Tesla.
That’s wishful thinking
So, Hyundai/Kia. And we’re wondering why Chinese companies look like they’re about to take over
Likely correct on paragraph 1, paragraph 2... not so much.
The reason tesla was able to get such a foothold was because they were innovating where the established automakers were floundering.
Tesla understood the Achilles' heel of EVs and got to fucking work on building out a charging network. This is a strong moat.
In defense of the established automakers, they wisened up and got into the EV market before it was too late. They adapted instead of becoming the next Blockbuster or Kodak.
Any advantage that Tesla had is long gone.
Honestly I think the real nail in the coffin for that company would be if another company like BYD came in and started selling their EVs on the market. Cause unlike Tesla they make decent cars at affordable prices.
If by "being a cunt", you mean "breathing": we can only hope.
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
Better CEO choice than Elon Musk.
If your CEO is a Nazi. How many Nazi CEOs do you have?
Again i ask: have you tried not being a nazi bastard?
I mean the option's right there.
Elon was never the guy who made Tesla work. He's just a rich guy who bought it and then had to be insulated from running it because his ideas suck.
The insulation had to happen with spacex and paypal too btw... This guy is not really good.
IIRC one of the big issues with Twitter was it didn't have anything set up to insulate the business from Musk's idiot whims.
things really went to shit when he mimicked hitler. maybe in order to reverse it he needs to mimick hitler again. now what did he do to get out of the mess he created for himself?
Fucked his cousin in a ditch and noshed a grenade, IIRC?
Burning your good will with your primary customer base by throwing your weight behind a political group full of the worst of society that has the public support of the statistically poorest in society wasn't a great long term plan?
Shocking, well not that shocking.
I did nazi that one coming...
🙄👏
c/angryupvote material right here
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
Yeah, sucks that the good charging network is theirs, so they'll continue to collect even if people buy other EVs.
He killed the charging network team so it won't be long until it's overtaken.
Imagine forfeiting such a strong moat.
Henry Ford was a Nazi, and his company did fine, tho! /s
Tesla cannot be saved until and unless Musk sells his share of the company and completely divorces himself from it. Even that may not be enough, as the brand is so closely associated with Musk that his stain may not wash off, but it's their only chance.
90% of what is keeping Tesla's value is the tech bro community's absolute belief in Elmo. If he sold all of his shares the value of the stock would plummet to almost zero. Hell if he even just sold a moderately large portion of his shares the stock price would plummet dramatically. That's why he's always so reluctant to sell his stock and basically uses it to leverage loans.
That's not why. The why is to avoid a taxable event.
He actually had to sell some of his stock to pay taxes a couple of years ago. And when he did so it dramatically dropped the price of the stock. So no. There's a rule in place that if you have a stock for X amount of time you do not have to pay taxes on it when you sell it.
You pay less taxes on long term, but not no taxes. That's why you take loans against it.
Thank you for confirming my point.
I think we are lacking reading comprehension skills.
Selling stock = taxable event, taxes (big or small).
Getting a loan against stock = no taxable event, zero taxes.
And the more stock he has and the more it's worth, the more money he can get from a loan based on it.
My point is still standing, the thing keeping him from selling his stock is not the taxes it's the value of the stock.
This was literally proved when he sold some of his stock to pay off taxes that he owed. Bitching on twitter the entire time about it as well.
It will, it just takes a lot of years. Lets not forget that Hugo Boss and Volkswagen were nazi germany companies.
They’re still quite popular even though one made military uniforms and the other vehicles.
And that can really only begin with his departure from the company. And his divestment.
A lot of people are going after Tesla because he owns a shit load of it and we want to bury him- not because we particularly care about Tesla.
Once he’s gone from the company, then they can rebuild, it eh…. He has to leave first.
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.
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.
Here's a plan : leave the engineers do their work, stop interfering with innovation, and just shut the fuck up. Not sure it would save tesla, but it would get a fighting chance.
That's how they became so big in the first place.
I honestly think there's going to be a mockumentary about him eventually. The alleged stories are straight out of a sitcom. With his PA distracting him from engineers doing important work, giving him fake people to fire when he got in one of his moods, keeping his wild antics away from social media, etc.
Then she asked for a raise and he fired her, afterwards he unraveled.
Let Tesla fail and Musk too. You don't want to save Tesla as long as the fascist Musk profits from it. Let all his companies fail.
Also don't promise stuff you just can't deliver on. Like how a Tesla would be full self driving in 2014 but next year, or that amazing truck that would be the end game for every company moving stuff, or the new roadster from 2017
As if he would ever see it, and on top of that, take the advice?
It's ok, they're well known to go against useful advice anyway.
The being a Nazi strategy didn’t pan out I guess
All he had to do was shut his fucking mouth. Tesla sells a competitively-price product and has a strong moat with their charging network. He is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, all because he doesn't know how to STFU.
That's fine. Tesla was always a meme stock with no substance anyway.
There is only 1 way to save that business and thats for elon to get rid of it.
Nobody is going to forget whats he's done or the fact that he is a nazi.
I think Tesla as a whole is done unfortunately. People aren't going to forget all this BS the board of directors has allowed him to do.
That may no longer be enough. It won’t matter if people no longer boycott them but
There’s going to be blood at that company. A huge reset, in addition to musk leaving, is what they need
Semi is a POS designed by a bunch of engineers who have never operated a semi.
Hell - with the center-space driver's seat, the driver can't hand over an ID or a clipboard at a gatehouse without exiting the vehicle through the rear of the cab and walking around.
Their official stance has long been Elon is Tesla. Fuck them.
Americans famously never forget....
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.
He should try the Nazi salut. 3rd resets the counter.
Well, someone sure is propping up his fascist memestock.
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.
What about creating a new model, the Tesla Texas? Same old shit, but running on gasoline
Or corner the Russian market with on that runs on Mazut.
Even if one of his ideas were to apologize for the nazi salute I think the "saving Tesla" ship has sailed.
There is one very easy way to save Telsa. Musk needs leave and divest. The company can’t have anything to do with him anymore.
Well that's guaranteed bankruptcy.
He owns 20% of an extremely overvalued meme stock (market capitalization of Tesla = almost all top 10 car manufacturers COMBINED), if he dumps them, then everyone will get margin called
And any other CEO would not be able to pump the meme stock telling the "self driving in 6 month" lie for years and years without being indicted for stock manipulation
The SEC is dead and he has presidential pocket pardons.
Couldn't a SPAC buy it out if/once he "comes to Jesus" and steps down as CEO and divests?
Essentially a reformation of the publicly traded company? Granted, these are just my own "pie in the sky" musings.
Ultimately, I think it's logically consistent to want to have Tesla do well as a company, but also still be against Elon Musk in everything he stands for. Personally, I would also discontinue the cyber truck and refocus towards producing an affordable and reliable EV starting at less than $30K. I don't think any of this is going to happen, mind you.
Ketamine does cause brain rot
Has he tried selling it to his AI business tohide the losses like he did Twitter?
Has he considered suicide?
It did wonders for hitler's image.
issue is - he should have done that 2-3 years ago. now its too late
Due to sheer china cars velocity - he cant catch up.
One thing that might help is to stop carrying around that human shield. Just a matter of time after that.
Bezos car company is a lot more practical. I just wish it wasn’t bezos.
He also threw a bunch of money into Rivian. He’s basically investing in companies that can make a a delivery truck that is cheaper to run and maintain.
That makes sense.
I'm really interested in Aptera if they can get it to production. It's probably more of a nitche vehicle, but I could see it fitting the needs of a lot of people.
If the apterra comes to Australia with what I heard it's price to be ages ago (25k USD) I might just sell my sports car for it.
They're so close 😭 I've been watching every update video they've posted, I can't wait
Also, it's niche*
I prefer a nitche vehicle. More pragmatic.
I'm curious what's going to happen if banks start calling Leon's loans since Tesla stock isn't going to be enough to cover his loans at some point, probably pretty soon.
That's not how loans against stock work. If the share price reach a threshold the shares are automatically sold to cover the loan.
Iirc the magic margin call number is $120/share or thereabouts. Once Tesla hits that, Elon's position gets liquidated.
Damn. Wish I could not buy his shit even harder.
Elon musk, resign bitch.
His real decision is going to be suing everyone that doesn't buy a tesla.
Bail out and never come back. Only way else Tesla is done.
He hasn't shot any migrants from his window in the morning. Maybe shoot migrants from your window? I don't known, that's the part I remember most about Schindler's list.
That could boost sales right?
Did he try to carry a sink into Tesla?
But you guys, Henry Ford liked Hitler toooooo!
Yeah that's why all car companies and new cars, large vehicles etc should be boycotted.
Yep. Henry was a pretty big piece of shit outside of his innovations
Maybe if that $56bn bonus goes through he’ll think of something. Heh.
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/
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.
I agree with your comment, but FYI:
eke
In the case of Tesla, I think "eek" out a profit is acceptable. Because it's scary what it is paying for.
I may be misunderstanding, but don't they have to sell cars to have the carbon credits to sell? So tanked sales = fewer credits.
Do you have a source on this?
Elon's entire career is about creating hype with the help of his loyal sycophants and then profiting off it.
xAI will bail tesla out.
Wouldn't it be the other way around? I think Musk would rather have TSLA
bagholdersshareholders prop up his private companies, of which he likely owns a higher percentage than Tesla. The pitch could be that xAI has what Tesla needs for some of the vaporware he keeps promising and that Tesla should therefore acquire xAI.The new model xXx42069xXx will come equipped fully loaded with uh an ai mascot. It can't drive or anything but it can insult your driving and blast the N word when it see's them on the camera feed.
Sorry bud, EVs were championed by reasonable people with stable government jobs. You fired them yourself congratulations you are your own worst enemy.
He could divest himself from the company.
Maybe you could just make like a tree and leave?
He's gonna sell Teslas... ON MARS! Definitely start in 5 years. Space-X will launch them!
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.
I’m sure Tesla gets an exemption from those battery cell tariffs.
How much that affects product price and influences consumers and the stock price is another question.
The last idea he had for Tesla was by shitting out the cybertruck.
Sinking companies is the only thing I'm actually good at!
He bought it. He can save it by selling it and all the stock he has in it. The faster he fades into obscurity the better off humanity will be.
Unfortunately, his narcissism won't stand for him fading into obscurity :(
Bet he regrets stopping people from burning down Tesla stores now cause he was claiming insurance for those.
If he were to divest/step down people would stop hating the company.
The board has condoned both him and his antics, and you'll never be able to trust a replacement board. The company is irredeemable.
Let's put that briefcase back in his hand so he can be left holding it when Tesla's stock tanks
We already know his
managementmeddling 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.He's and the board are going to sell sell sell. It's done.
His shareholders must be all over him.
From the people who brought to you the Tesla X!
Doxing viewing surfaces! That's right! The new Tesla tells you which cars are expensive enough to drive next to you. The rear view mirrors show you if someone is Mexican or black so you can drive faster or cut them off. Extremely useful features.