When Tesla releases its first quarter earnings this afternoon, the company’s CEO Elon Musk will field the usual questions about new products, new factories, and progress toward its futuristic vision of self-driving cars and robot workers. But Musk will also face increasingly urgent questions about its current state of affairs — and why everything seems to be going to shit.

Earlier this month, the company reported its first year-over-year sales drop in four years, a sign of rougher waters ahead. Tesla’s stock has fallen more than 40 percent since the start of the year, including a 13 percent drop in the last week. The company laid off over 14,000 employees last week, 10 percent of its global workforce — which could end up being closer to 20 percent when all’s said and done, according to Bloomberg. Today’s earnings report is expected to include Tesla’s lowest profit margins in six years, a sign that rampant price-cutting continues to exact a toll.

  • jaschen@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Honestly, if another CEO steps in and Elon retires, the company might actually recover. Right now the image of Tesla is tied too closely to Elon who we know is an asshat.

    • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      They might finally develop the affordable, mass market car that Musk has been claiming is in the works for years, instead of idiotic and expensive passion projects like the cybertruck.

      • proudblond@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Musk thinks he already did that with the model 3, right? Billionaires have no concept of “affordable” after all.

      • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Idk, I think the idea of selling trucks want bad. Americans love trucks. That being said, the execution seems very poor.

        • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today
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          6 months ago

          The idea of a truck EV isn’t bad market wise, look at Rivian for example. It was purely poor execution, no doubt attributed to Musk.

        • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          The execution is very poor, and I’d rather these dangerous monstrosities go away and be replaced by smaller, less dangerous, and more practical vehicles. And ideally, car ownership will decline over the long term with viable alternatives to driving hopefully being developed across the world (but that’s a whole other discussion).

    • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I’ve got coworkers who literally think Elon is humanity’s savior. This came up today (shared a pic of a tesla w/ a bumper sticker that said “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy…” and they IMMEDIATELY started gargling his metaphorical balls).

      There’s a tiny sliver of market that represents the overlapped portion of 1) hopeless rednecks, and 2) people interested in owning an electric vehicle… that’s Tesla’s target customer. It’s gonna saturate in a hurry, but it’s also a cult-like following of cash cows eager to be milked. My money’s on Tesla’s performance steadying out and maintaining a not-great but not-bad-enough-to-tank-the-company level of financial success.

    • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Depends on what you mean by “recover”. It might recover in the sense that the entire company won’t go bankrupt and will find a sustainable way to continue existing, but it will never recover to the current stock worth. Tesla has been grossly overvalued as whatever huge potential it had has been squandered. The stock will drop regardless of what Tesla does and it’s highly unlikely it will ever reach such worth ever again.

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      It’s not just his image. He’s an awful manager and has made some atrocious decision in the last few years affecting Tesla employees, customers and shareholders… even people who don’t buy teslas due to the unsafe FSD. He’s made Tesla a financial and physical danger to the public.

    • OpenPassageways@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      It seems like it would be a good move to have him step down.

      I’m not sure they will though, I think the board is probably still stuck in the mindset that their company is valued highly because of Musk.

      • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Musk also owns the board, and they all know if he goes down, they’re going with him. They know he’s an idiot, but he’s wormed his way into every facet of the company.

        It’s why they allowed him to buy a company that was weeks away from bankruptcy (Solar City) for a huge premium using Tesla funds despite it being very likely to bankrupt Tesla itself.

        It’s why they allowed him to stay in his position, despite being sanctioned by the SEC for lying about taking the company private (at $420 because lol weed number) to pump the stock.

        It’s why they’re pushing for his absurd $58bn pay package to be retroactively instated, even though the company just had an absolutely abysmal financial quarter.

        Make no mistake looking at the official org chart. The board consists of Elon Musk, E. Musk, E. R. Musk, and Musk, Elon R. Any other names are merely a formality and entirely beholden to his whims. The only way Elon leaves Tesla is either in handcuffs or on a stretcher.