A Wren Says

Tesla sales were down 71%. If like me you don’t fancy yourself a math genius, we can both just rest assured that equals a lot money lost. It had nothing to do with the product itself. Not even the cybertruck catching fire or concerns about self-driving systems led to such a drop. It all has to do with politics.

Or more specifically, it was largely related to how Elon Musk has inserted himself into the Trump administration as the head of DOGE. That led to a new word problem. If Elon Musk is the head of DOGE and Tesla, then does the action of the White House equal Tesla. The answer, or as it seems, is that yes,Tesla, the company, then became associated with all things Elon Musk is doing politically. Buying a Tesla would be indicating that you agreed with Musk’s political leanings.

With Elon Musk as the founder and still current CEO of Tesla, his brand image is the image of the company. Presumably to help remedy this situation, Musk claimed, on a call to shareholders, that he would be stepping down his commitment to DOGE, to just a few days a week. That will likely still be too many. The issue here isn’t that he just isn’t letting himself focus enough on Tesla. The issue is that he has become the focus. If he still remains connected to the administration at all, it is likely that protests and declining public opinion of the brand would continue. In turn, sales won’t rebound. With Tesla being a publicly traded company, I wonder if the board and shareholders would move to push Musk out to save themselves.