Elon Musk Is The Cause, Not The Solution To Tesla’s Deep Problems

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Last Updated on: 21st May 2025, 02:41 am

Today, Elon Musk’s propaganda machine is in overdrive (or, as Tesla would put it, they’re in “range mode”). Elon is now done with politics, and he’s going to focus on his core companies like Tesla.

Not only are Elon and sympathetic Trump Regime officials pushing this narrative, but they’re pulling in basically anyone they can to make sure everyone knows Elon is going back to work.

It was a full court push today Wally, two Elon interviews, and Transport Secretary Duffman interview in the Tesla factory. www.cnbc.com/video/2025/0…

— (@kingbradentucky.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T02:07:39.871Z

Thinking Past The Sale

For many people, the first instinct to countering this narrative will be to deny that Elon Musk is going to focus on the companies more. I personally doubt that he’s really done with politics. Instead of openly espousing authoritarian policies and supporting the regime, he can very easily just do things behind the scenes to undermine freedom and human rights.

But, if we focus on whether he’s telling the truth, we will eventually find that we’ve skipped past a much more important question: Will Tesla be a stronger company with Elon Musk spending more time on it?

For people who only started thinking Elon Musk was a problem in 2024, skipping past that question will work. For people focused on partisan politics, him getting out (at least publicly) is a “mission accomplished” moment. Putting pressure on Musk’s business empire resulted in him backing off, right?

But, as with other “mission accomplished” moments we should all be familiar with, to claim victory at this point would be extremely short sighted.

Tesla Has Been Troubled By Musk’s Poor Decisions For Years

On my way to Moab last month, I noticed something a little insane: a lot full of Tesla Cybertrucks. In the past, people driving by a Tesla retail location would see a mix of vehicles to serve varying customer needs and wants. Instead, there were dozens of ugly stainless wedges parked out front looking for buyers.

Back in 2019, I pointed out that the Cybertruck was a mistake. Sure, fresh designs can sometimes shake up a stagnant industry, but at the same time, we have to think about why pickup trucks are built the way they are. The boring, modular design of trucks might be bad for efficiency and bad for people who want something a little more exotic, but it unlocks economies of scale that manufacturers desperately need to compete.

The Stans pointed out that there were hundreds of thousands and then millions of reservations. Certainly anyone saying the truck won’t sell well must be out of touch, they said. But, the truck would never sell for $40,000. And, anyone with $100 could reserve one, and there were even people who didn’t have a driver’s license putting in reservations to look cool to fellow Stans and grifters.

Now, with the trucks piling up and serious issues coming to light, it’s becoming clear that the Cybertruck was just another bad idea that would run out of hot air.

Sadly, it’s far from the first. If you read books like Edward Niedermeyer’s Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, it becomes clear that the company hasn’t done things like this over and over. Things that pumped up stock prices or brought in subsidy money without working out include:

• Battery swap stations
• “Alien Juggernaut” fully-automated factories
• Full Self Driving by this year (almost every year going back almost a decade)
• Deleting essential physical controls
• Tesla Roadster 2.0 referrals and production
• Tesla Semi production in real numbers (supposedly coming in 2026 now)

In Niedermeyer’s book, one key story about a Tesla employee applying for a job at a Toyota plant shows us a deeper problem: trying to make cars like software. The story goes that the Tesla employee was proud of having “saved the day” several times to keep cars rolling off the line, but Toyota’s executives weren’t impressed. Why? Because Toyota would never have the need for someone to heroically solve a big problem. They’re so careful that no days ever need saved.

Malice or Incompetence?

Watching Tesla go from one unrealistic idea that pumps the stock to the next for years leads people to assume that this is all part of a scheme to rake in money. I have no proof that Elon Musk is intentionally scheming to rip off investors and taxpayers, and probably never will, so I won’t make that accusation. Hanlon’s razor may very well apply here.

But, does it really matter? Not really.

If it’s not all a scam, the other explanation is incompetence. If Elon Musk really does go from bad idea to bad idea, dragging the company along from disaster to disaster, that doesn’t make him a fit chief executive. It makes him an even bigger liability to the future of the company.

Blaming It All On Politics

Elon Musk would have us all believe that Tesla was doing great until late 2024, and that his involvement in politics is what put the company in a bad spot. He’s such a great leader that him taking time off is what made the stock price and sales go down. All he needs to do now is put “DOGE” in someone else’s hands, focus on Tesla and other core companies, and everything will go back to where it was in no time.

But, to believe this, we have to ignore the previous decade or more of his leadership at the company. We have to forget or be blissfully ignorant to the way the company stumbled from bad call to bad call. We have to forget that we don’t have Tesla Semis getting passed by Roadster 2.0s, both driving themselves while the occupants sleep. We have to forget that the company almost went bankrupt in 2018. We have to forget that Cybertrucks are clogging up Tesla lots.

The sad truth is that this latest bad call (pursuing politics instead of therapy when disowned by a transgender daughter) probably won’t be the last. Eventually, he’s going to screw up badly enough or enough times that the company’s investors lose out big time.

But, if you’re stupid enough to buy Tesla stock because he’s coming back to work, you probably deserve to get ripped off. Just don’t say you weren’t warned.