Tesla investor calls for Elon Musk to step down as boss
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 Donald 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.
Mr 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.”
Mr Gerber told presenter Darren McCaffrey that 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. [Continue reading…]
JPMorgan cut Tesla’s delivery forecast down by 20% to 355,000 units, down from the initial analyst projection of 444,000. The firm’s initial projection was already a little higher than the 430,000 units that most everyone else in this arena had already agreed upon. It also thinks that Tesla’s stock still has a long way to go, with the potential to hit $120 per share, or about half of what it is now. [Continue reading…]
“When you make your product unattractive to half the market, I promise you, you won’t increase your sales,” said Alexander Edwards, president of Strategic Vision, an automotive research and consulting firm.
Mr. Edwards has been surveying car buyers for decades. Since 2016, the surveys have found that electric-car owners were up to four times as likely to identify as Democrats or liberals as to identify as Republican or conservative. Among Tesla owners, the spread was consistently two to one. [Continue reading…]