Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Tuesday that he will begin dedicating more time to Tesla and less to his work with the Trump administration starting next month, providing a relief to Tesla investors fed up with his political work and signaling a possible shift in power at the White House. <\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s comments came on Tesla\u2019s call with investors following the company reporting a sizable drop in first-quarter profit and revenue. The company warned that the political environment along with the Trump administration\u2019s tariff plans were challenges for its business.<\/p>\n
\u2018Starting probably next month, May, my time obligation to DOGE will drop significantly,\u2019 Musk said, referring to his Department of Government Efficiency. <\/p>\n
\u2018I think I\u2019ll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do so, and for as long as it is useful, but starting next month, I\u2019ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla, now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done,\u2019 he said. <\/p>\n
Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has faced a swell of opposition for his work with President Donald Trump, which has made Tesla a growing target for protests and even vandalism. Musk has acknowledged that his move into politics has hit the company\u2019s stock price.<\/p>\n
Tesla \u2014 which is increasingly trying to diversify into high-tech products like robots \u2014 said profits fell 71% to $409 million, compared with $1.39 billion during the same quarter one year ago.<\/p>\n
Shares of Tesla were up about 4% in after-hours trading, though the company has lost 50% of its value from its mid-December peak. <\/p>\n
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n
Musk reiterated on the call that he intends to pivot Tesla from its established electric car business into two new products: robotaxis and humanoid robots, two ideas that investors have been skeptical about. <\/p>\n
Musk said that Tesla was still on track to begin selling robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, in June, putting Tesla into head-to-head competition with Google spinoff Waymo, which launched robotaxi rides there in March via the Uber app.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tesla, in its written earnings report, said that \u2018uncertainty in the automotive and energy markets\u2019 associated with \u2018rapidly evolving trade policy,\u2019 along with \u2018changing political sentiment,\u2019 could have \u2018a meaningful impact on demand for our products in the near-term.\u2019<\/p>\n
It also said updates to its best-selling Model Y that affected its availability on the market contributed to the shortfall. <\/p>\n
\u2018We remain committed to expanding our business model to include delivering autonomous robots across multiple form factors and use cases \u2014 powered by our real-world AI expertise \u2014 to our customers and for use in our factories, as we navigate these headwinds,\u2019 it said. <\/p>\n
It said it was not prepared to provide guidance for performance the rest of the year \u2014 a decision other companies are also making \u2014 because of broad trends that include the impact from tariffs. Tesla has boasted that is \u2018the most American-made\u2019 car, but it still faces tariff exposure due to imported parts.<\/p>\n
It said it would \u2018revisit\u2019 guidance for 2025 in three months. <\/p>\n
\u2018It is difficult to measure the impacts of shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains, our cost structure and demand for durable goods and related services,\u2019 Tesla said in the outlook section of its report. <\/p>\n
Musk, on the conference call, said he pressed Trump to reverse course on his tariff policy but was not successful.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m one of many advisers to the president. I\u2019m not the president, but I\u2019ve made my opinion clear to the president,\u2019 he said. \u2018I\u2019m an advocate of predictable tariff structures.\u2019 <\/p>\n
Musk has faced pressure from many sides, including from investors who would like him to pay more attention to the company and from his job in the Trump administration, where he has volunteered to slash government programs. <\/p>\n
Musk has kept his CEO roles at Tesla and SpaceX even while he has spent much of his time with President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, the group charged with reducing federal spending.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n A CNBC All-America Economic survey released earlier Tuesday underscored the depth of the negative sentiment toward Tesla and Musk: 47% of the public had negative views of the company versus 27% positive, and half had negative views of Musk, compared with 36% who saw him positively. <\/p>\n \u2018Tesla has become a political symbol around the world,\u2019 Daniel Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, said in an interview on CNBC after the earnings report was released. <\/p>\n Ives said the political controversy has hurt Tesla not only by reducing demand for vehicles but also because Tesla has become a target for retaliatory tariffs by other nations, such as China. <\/p>\n The earnings report did not explicitly mention the repeated vandalism against Tesla vehicles or the peaceful protests at its showrooms, instead citing the \u2018changing political sentiment\u2019 as a headwind for demand. <\/p>\n A key question for Tesla, Musk and the Trump administration has been how long Musk will remain in his White House position. His job as a \u201cspecial government employee\u201d is time-limited by law to 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days, which could put his legally mandated endpoint as early as late May. Musk told Fox News this month that he believed \u201cmost\u201d of his work would be done by the deadline.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Tuesday that he will begin dedicating more time to Tesla and less to his work with the Trump administration starting next month, providing a relief to Tesla investors fed up with his political work and signaling a possible shift in power at the White House. Musk\u2019s comments came on Tesla\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}