Is Elon Musk hurting Tesla? (Mod Note Post #1)

I haven't seen any talk of tariffs being walked back. He's been threatening the EU and China as recently as a few days ago.

I really hope he does though. It's very much a case of be careful what you wish for. The income from them is derisory, but the internal effects can be massive. The law of unexpected consequences loves tariffs.

Not sure how it will affect Tesla though. I would imagine there's a fair amount of imported content in their cars.

I like that Tesla made evs cool looking considering the Nissan leaf and Chevy bolt were the mass market ev leaders, but even atheistically his Cybertruck was as much a sign of his mental unravelling.

I don't know exactly why but when I saw pics of the ex army guy who killed himself in his Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel it just seemed prophetic. I believe that he was a Trump supporter too.

The other thing that could affect share price is if the market decides that Tesla is a car company and not a tech company. There are good reasons for it being considered the latter, mainly because its early share price growth most resembled a tech company's and it was being valued highly despite not making profits.

On the flip side, the share price growth has stalled and even reversed at some stages, but those reversals were halted and turned around by factors that weren't related to its products and more to do with what Musk has announced or (more recently) his involvement with Trump. But there's only so much vapourware announcements he can make before the market decides to realign its price with reality.

It won't change anytime soon though. His involvement in the government puts him in a unique position to manipulate the market in his favour.

But for a long time it wasn't making a profit from its car sales. It's well documented that it was carbon credits and subsidies that made up the profits. And the share valuation is way above that of a normal car company. Tesla's market valuation after the election was equal to half the global car industry. That's a nuts valuation.

ah come on gumbo, this is completely different.

I’ve never seen such a ratio of views to comments - but no one seems to be angry any more; all of them are mocking and comedic in their nature. It’s brand kryptonite.

Richard Simon’s covered it a week or so ago too and had 1500-2000 comments, and most of his viewers are fans and owners, but 99% was negative sentiment, most comments were measured, not raving lunatics.

At the end of the day, European deliveries of Tesla this year will be a simple measure of how much he’s affecting Tesla’s business.

In 2024, Tesla Europe deliveries were down 11% versus 2023, and market share was down from 18% to 16%.

I don't think that's relevant here. We're comparing Tesla with Tesla and how opinion seems to have shifted. Whether that translates into sales figures or not remains to be seen.

I think that was you, to whom he replied without mentioning those other brands that I can see?

This for me would be the biggest danger he's exposing Tesla to.