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Elon Musk trashed by major Tesla investor after earnings call: 'Does he actually do anything
at all?'
One of Tesla most high-profile investors says he has even less faith in Musk and Tesla after
listening to Musk's comments on the company's most recent earnings call.
Really American
Apr 23, 2025
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Elon Musk faced a huge reckoning for Tesla this Tuesday. In the wake of the company
missing its first quarter revenue target by $2 billion, Musk hopped on an earnings call with
his investors. Beforehand, they submitted an array of questions to the billionaire who chose
to sacrifice his credibility — and Tesla — to go all-in with Trump.

"Can Elon please provide some reassurance that at some point soon he will be done with
DOGE and politics?" one investor asked. "Many Tesla shareholders wish he would
reprioritize the majority of his time and effort to engineering."

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During the call, Musk tried to reassure investors by saying that next month, his work with
DOGE will “drop significantly.”

“Starting next month, I'll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla," he said. But Musk also
defended his work with DOGE, despite the fact that it’s directly connected to the collapse of
Tesla, saying that he needed to "fight the waste and fraud and try to get the country back on
the right track."

Most notably in the call, Musk reiterated his disagreement with Donald Trump on tariffs.

"I'm an advocate of predictable tariff structures, and generally, I'm an advocate for, you know,
pro-trade and lower tariffs," said Musk — who was markedly calmer than the past insults he
lobbed at Trump’s tariff guru Peter Navarro.

The call did nothing to calm fears, though. In a note to investors, equity analyst Adam
Crisafulli said that although expectations were very low, “these are still bad numbers."
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives agreed, saying, "Musk needs to leave the government, take a
major step back on DOGE, and get back to being CEO of Tesla full-time.”

Also speaking out was one of Tesla’s most high-profile investors, Ross Gerber.

Gerber has given multiple interviews in recent days where he slammed Musk’s
incompetence. He outright said that he personally doesn’t like Musk and added that no one
“has made any money in Tesla for a long time.”

"Tesla stock is down 40% this year," he said. "The performance is, I think, directly related to
[Musk] not working at the company and his outside activities. I don’t like Elon. It’s personal;
the way he does things. That’s true, and I don’t align with him morally, but that is irrelevant of
my investment in Tesla.”

"You'd have to be blind not to see that Elon's behavior is highly political and highly damaging
to the brand," he told Bloomberg.

"I understand why retail investors at Tesla are frustrated with me," he continued. "I find it
horrible the fact that people are worried about having their vehicles vandalized, including me,
because of Elon. I'm actually really getting attacked because of Elon's behavior."

"I want to see Tesla succeed. That's the whole purpose of why I say these things and get
criticized," he said. "I am emotional about it because I love Tesla."

In an interview that was published this Wednesday, Gerber was even more harsh. At one
point in the interview, he said he is "trying to figure out if Elon Musk actually does anything at
Tesla at all," and that his promised return to the company seems like "false hope."

Gerber also called Musk “delusional.”

"What it seems like from the call is they're in complete denial of his actions causing this
result, and it's these leftists that are attacking him because he's in the government, is what
he seems to think," he said. "Then the minimize the effect on the company. I think they are
just completely delusional at this point, including Elon."

He went on to say that Musk’s comments during the call were mostly meaningless.

"Everything was pretty standard Elon gibberish through the first part of the call with the same
promises and false statements that he normally makes.”

Gerber owned more than 250,000 shares of Tesla stock as of March. In August 2024, he
said he dumped $60 million of stock in the company.

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becoming a paid subscriber. It’s how we keep the lights on. Thanks!
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Robert Elliott
2d

When are these investors going to learn that Musk is less necessary to Tesla than sub-par
quarter panel glue. He buys companies that are already doing things and takes credit for
them. The reason Tesla is doing poorly now is not because he’s absent from day-to-day
operations, but because he exists at all.

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TS Elliott
TS Elliott
2d

Investing in Tesla funds fascism.

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