tesla has been having a tough old time of late
from sluggish EV sales and widespread boycots to competition from China and of course the recent
very public falling out between Elon Musk and President Trump all of the above have resulted
in Tesla’s TSLA becoming the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 that’s crazy but with signs
that some of these issues could be easing the big question now is is there still hope for Tesla and
its stock price well in today’s video we’ll dive into the recent protests Musk’s ties to Doge his
public feud with Trump and the key developments that could shape Tesla’s future my name is Guy
stay tuned in August last year during Trump’s presidential election campaign Elon Musk proposed
a government efficiency commission to audit the federal government spending this idea was welcomed
by Trump who offered Musk an advisory role the following day when the news of this broke an
exuser suggested that this body should be named the Department of Government Efficiency or Doge
for short musk being a longtime Dogecoin supporter and self-certified Doge father replied quote
“That is the perfect name.” Now to many this just seemed like a joke however it became reality when
then Cander Fitzgerald CEO and current commerce secretary Howard Lutnik registered Doge as its
official name saying he knew it would make Musk laugh shortly after Trump’s election victory
in November he announced that he would indeed establish Doge with Musk set to run the advisory
body alongside American biotech entrepreneur and fellow billionaire Vivec Ramaswami although the
latter decided not to take the role in the end doge was officially established on Trump’s first
day in office after converting the United States Digital Service or USDS into the Department of
Government Efficiency or Doge through an executive order despite its name though Doge isn’t actually
an official government department but rather an advisory body that works outside of Congress
regardless from the moment that Doge started it instructed government agencies to identify areas
where federal spending could be cut and moved to eliminate left-leaning organizations by the end
of January over 2 million federal employees were sent a deferred resignation offer notably the
subject line read quote “Fork in the road.” the same subject line Musk used in a similar email
to Twitter employees when he took over the social media platform in 2022 since that January email
went out around 275,000 federal employees have been laid off now Musk’s decision to cozy up
with Trump has caused major problems for Tesla that’s simply because Musk is very much the
face of the company but has now also become one of the faces of the Trump administration
and its firmly right-wing politics the problem for Tesla is that many of its customers are the
sort of people who aren’t naturally aligned with the MAGA movement put differently Tesla’s
consumer base is more likely to be made up of Democrat voters many of whom have bought its
cars because of concerns around carbon emissions not surprisingly many Democrats were also opposed
to the massive budget cuts and other actions taken by Doge so as Musk’s public stance has shifted
further to the right many Tesla owners have become alienated and some have begun to lash out but
Tesla faces other challenges outside of politics it’s also faced criticism for alleged worker
exploitation Musk’s controversial social media posts and aggressive management decisions all of
this has helped give rise to the so-called Tesla takedown movement a series of protests and boycots
against the company and Musk himself protests have taken place outside Tesla showrooms across the
United States and to a lesser extent in Europe most of these were peaceful and nonviolent with
demonstrators vocally opposing Elon Musk Donald Trump Doge and other Trump policies not all
protests were so peaceful though reports quickly emerged of people vandalizing Teslas setting
charging stations on fire and smashing showroom windows some activists also urged investors to
avoid or divest from Tesla stock a flurry of Tesla owners also sold their vehicles often at a loss
flooding the market and driving their values down in other words not the best PR well hello there
i know you’re enjoying the video immensely but I for Tesla’s business and for its stock in fact
a quick look at the chart reveals that within two months of Trump signing Doge into an executive
order in January Tesla’s stock price had plummeted by 50% now this is crazy when you consider that
TSLA hit an all-time high right at the end of 2024 the resulting damage was catastrophic roughly
$635 billion was wiped off the company’s market cap and it’s estimated that Musk’s personal net
worth fell by $150 billion as a result don’t you just hate it when that happens to make matters
worse on the 22nd of April Tesla unveiled its financials for the first 3 months of 2025 and to
say they weren’t great would be an understatement tesla reported a 20% drop in car sales compared
to the same period last year and declared that profits had fallen by more than 70% wow it’s
perhaps unsurprising then that the company refused to offer a growth forecast for this year
and instead warned investors that there could be more pain if political sentiment continues to
damage demand however it isn’t just Musk causing issues for Tesla on top of all the mounting
political pressure Trump’s tariffs on China were also causing problems because although Teslas are
assembled and sold in the US and elsewhere many parts are made in China notably Musk had said that
he believed Tesla would be the car maker least affected by Trump’s tariff policies and added that
quote “I’ll continue to advocate for lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs but that’s all I can
do.” And while we’re on the subject of China it’s worth noting that EV companies there are starting
to eat into Tesla’s market share the likes of BYD and Jetour are churning out models that are not
only cheaper but in many cases arguably better than those Tesla currently produces which perhaps
poses an even greater threat to the company than Musk’s shenanigans in any case Tesla’s April
earnings call proved to be too much to ignore because during that call Musk said he would be
stepping back from Doge to focus more of his time on Tesla this was music to the ears of Tesla
investors everywhere and its stock price rallied by almost 15% over the following days then on
the 29th of May Musk confirmed his exit from Doge on X thanking Trump quote for the opportunity to
reduce wasteful spending what’s interesting though is that he said that the federal bureaucracy is
much worse than he expected and that trying to improve things in Washington was quote an uphill
battle now after Musk’s announcement that he was done with Doge you’d think that Tesla’s stock
would have rallied but it didn’t instead TSLA took a nose dive falling 25% in a matter of days
the reason for this was that just days before announcing his departure from Doge Musk expressed
his disappointment for Trump’s so-called one big beautiful bill what quickly followed was a major
public fallout between the world’s richest man and the world’s most powerful man but what exactly
is Trump’s one big beautiful bill all about well among many things it’s aiming to extend Trump’s
2017 tax cuts and jobs act permanently it also introduces new work requirements for able-bodied
childless Medicaid recipients and raises state and local tax deductions from $10,000 to $40,000
the bill also establishes a $1,000 savings account for newborn children meanwhile on immigration
it allocates $46.5 billion towards initiatives like constructing the border wall and another 12
billion towards security related measures now as always many mainstream economists were quick to
express their opinions about the bill some pointed out that it would have a negative effect on poorer
Americans while others said that although the bill could support economic growth it wouldn’t be
enough to offset the loss in revenue from tax cuts however the loudest opposition came from one Elon
Musk who posted on X that quote “This massive outrageous pork- fililled congressional spending
bill is a disgusting abomination.” He also told a reporter that quote “I was disappointed to
see the massive spending bill frankly which increases the budget deficit not just decreases
it and undermines the work that the Doge team is doing.” For many this was a massive shock to the
system after all Musk had otherwise been one of Trump’s most vocal supporters heck not so long
ago his kids were running around the White House and he was gifting Trump a Tesla that said Trump
and Musk share a lot of traits both are big ego billionaires with an appetite for internet beefing
so perhaps a clash between them was inevitable in any case Trump responded to Musk’s criticism by
calling it disappointing in his words quote “Elon and I had a great relationship i don’t know if we
will anymore and this came just days after Trump had praised Musk publicly even presenting him with
a ceremonial golden key to the White House during a joint press conference and highlighting his work
with Doge but what’s really crazy is that Musk was responding to Trump seemingly in real time just 22
minutes after Trump expressed his disappointment Musk posted on X quote “Without me Trump would
have lost the election.” He then followed by saying quote such ingratitude and floated the
idea of launching a new political party soon after Trump took to his own social media platform
Truth Social to say that quote Elon was wearing thin i asked him to leave i took away his EV
mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted that he knew for
months I was going to do and he just went crazy musk then went all in on Trump in a post that’s
since been deleted saying that quote “Time to drop the really big bomb donald Trump is in
the Epstein files.” That is the real reason they have not been made public have a nice day
DJT but that wasn’t even the end of it the clash then escalated as the two began exchanging posts
about the US government’s contracts with SpaceX another of Musk’s companies and one critical to
NASA’s space exploration efforts trump suggested that contracts could be terminated prompting
Musk to threaten the decommissioning of the Dragon spacecraft which transports astronauts
to and from the International Space Station however just a few hours later Musk walked
back the threat after responding to ex users urging him to cool down now while this lover’s
tiff might sound like playground drama it’s important to remember that these are two of the
most powerful people in the world one holds the nuclear codes while the other commands nearly
unlimited financial resources given that this feud could have serious and farreaching consequences
thankfully though both Trump and Musk appear to have chilled out a little bit since then musk said
he regrets some of his posts about Trump and Trump said that he has no hard feelings but it’s not
a completely happy ending the very public spat led to Tesla’s stock being downgraded twice
by analysts at Argus Research and Bed argus analysts noted that the company’s shares are now
trading on factors unrelated to its fundamentals meanwhile bad analysts observed that Musk’s ties
to Trump once viewed positively after the election are now fueling uncertainty and raising concerns
about Tesla’s public image so then it’s pretty clear that so far this year has been nothing
short of a nightmare for Tesla the question is now do consumers and investors have anything
to look forward to in the second half of 2025 well as it happens there are several developments
that could help turn the tide the most exciting of these is the highly anticipated launch of
Tesla’s robo taxi service a major milestone for Tesla’s full self-driving or FSD program this
program has faced numerous delays back in 2019 Musk confidently predicted robo taxis would
launch in 2020 and become mainstream by 2022 safe to say things are a little behind schedule
then however Musk has recently given a tentative launch date of the 22nd of June saying on X that
quote “We are being super paranoid about safety so the date could shift.” The first Tesla that
drives itself from the factory end of line all the way to a customer’s house is June 28th notably
the first ever Tesla Model Y robo taxi was spotted testing on public roads in Austin Texas just a few
days earlier with Musk saying that quote “These are unmodified Tesla cars coming straight from
the factory meaning that every Tesla coming out of our factories is capable of unsupervised
self-driving.” Now to be frank this is both incredibly exciting and somewhat terrifying while
the tech feels straight out of the future there have been multiple fatal crashes involving Tesla’s
autopilot and full self-driving features it’s just as well then that crash reporting requirements
and regulations around self-driving are being relaxed anyhow another trick up Tesla’s sleeve
is the announcement of an entry-level EV that more people can afford this was revealed during
the April earnings call with production of these simpler models set to begin in June while details
are still largely unknown clues suggest it will essentially be a simplified version of the Model
Y one of the bestselling cars worldwide there’s also speculation that additional entry-level
EVs could be in the pipeline based on Tesla VP L Moravey’s use of the plural term models during
the conference call rather than the singular model tesla is also working on refreshed versions of
existing models recently the company released updated versions of the Model 3 and Model Y each
featuring new enhancements refreshed versions of the Model S and Model X are expected later this
year though no official release dates have been announced now Tesla also has several projects
beyond EVs that could attract investors and consumers the standout here is the Tesla Optimus
robot a fully AI powered humanoid inspired by the 2004 film iroot in which humans coexist with
robots until the AI evolves and turns against them hm what could possibly go wrong in fact the
movie even inspired the title of Tesla’s showcase last year Wii Robot did they watch the whole
movie through to the end h anyways Optimus has been in development since 2021 and has already
been showcased several times until now the main challenge has apparently been figuring out how to
commercialize it but during that aforementioned showcase Musk said that each Optimus would cost
between 20,000 and $30,000 and would be quote the biggest product ever of any kind and in its Q1
2025 shareholder deck Tesla included an image of the Optimus pilot production line at the company’s
Fremont factory then during the company’s earnings call Musk said quote “We’re making good
progress in Optimus we expect to have thousands of Optimus robots working in Tesla factories
by the end of this year doing useful work.” Musk also expressed confidence that Optimus
will scale faster than any product in history predicting that Tesla could produce millions
of units annually within 5 years to be fair the company has already deployed a handful of Optimus
robots to perform basic tasks in its factories which Musk confirmed during Tesla’s Q2 investor
conference call in 2024 and in addition to all the cars and robots that Tesla plans on turnurning out
it’s also investing heavily in the energy sector while sales of its EVs have been lackluster of
late this has been partially offset by Tesla’s energy storage arm which has shown impressive
strength tesla’s management expects this trend to continue projecting at least 50% year-over-year
growth in 2025 the company has outlined its vision for a global sustainable energy economy with
gridscale storage as a cornerstone and Musk has even said that Tesla’s energy business could
eventually surpass its automotive division in importance and revenue which is just nuts to
think about so then all of this brings us to the big question what does all this mean for Tesla’s
stock well in case it wasn’t obvious from what we’ve just covered the rest of 2025 is set to be
potentially transformative for Tesla with many exciting developments seemingly right around
the corner this should be bullish for Tesla’s stock price assuming the company doesn’t fall too
far behind schedule but what will perhaps be more reassuring for Tesla’s investors is that the very
public display of Musk and Trump taking shots at each other on social media seems to have come to
an end as such Musk will be able to focus more of his time and efforts on Tesla likely helping to
accelerate the many developments it has in the works the caveat though is that if Trump and Musk
have indeed made up then there’s still a chance Musk will be called upon to remain involved in
Doge at least in some capacity on the other hand if the relationship between Trump and Musk turns
sour again well we’re likely to see more of the same social media activity that will likely cause
issues for Tesla’s reputation so in our opinion the best way for Tesla to move forward from this
point is if Musk is happy to completely step away from Doge and his involvement in US politics in
the meantime though it seems that the recent drama between Musk and Trump has deescalated and as
such Tesla can focus on looking forwards from our perspective the next step will be the success of
its robo taxi and affordable EV models which will be critical to the company’s profit margins and to
its stock performance to be fair though there is a chance that none of this matters anyway because
if Tesla’s Optimus robots continue to develop at their current pace then maybe it’s only a matter
of time before they analyze how the most powerful human beings behave and decide that enough is
enough and enslave us all well at least that’ll save us from having to watch grown men kick lumps
out of each other on social media eh okay if you enjoyed today’s video then show those like and
subscribe buttons some love if you want to see a deeper dive on Tesla’s Optimus robots then
check out the video right over here and if you want to learn more about Trump’s big beautiful
bill then you can check out the video right here okay thank you all so much for watching and
I’ll see you again soon this is Guy signing off
