Why It Matters

Tesla held their first earnings call on Tuesday since Musk joined PresidentĀ Donald Trump’s administration. The call comes after the company’s stock tumbled throughout the year amid boycotts from potential consumers, backlash to Musk’s involvement in government and several instances of vandalism against Tesla vehicles.

Tesla’s stock has dropped 37 percent so far in 2025.

Musk has faced growing criticism from Tesla investors, who want to see changes to ensure their investments in the company do not further diminish. During the call, Musk indicated he plans in the near future to step back from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to refocus on the company.

What to Know

Investor Ross Gerber toldĀ NewsweekĀ via phone interview Tuesday evening that the call did not leave him feeling more confident in the company’s future. He said he is “trying to figure out if Elon Musk actually does anything at Tesla at all,” and that his return seems like a “false hope.”

“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.”

Gerber, the CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, owned more than 250,000 shares of Tesla stock as of March. In August 2024, he told Business Insider he dumped $60 million of stock in the company. HeĀ previously called for the Tesla board to oust Musk as CEO.

He said he believes Musk would be more focused on ventures like xAI in the near future after taking a step back from DOGE.

Earlier Tuesday, Tela’s earnings report showedĀ that the company’sĀ profits had declined by 71 percent in the first quarterĀ of 2025.

Gerber said Musk’s comments about Tesla’s robotaxi, an autonomous vehicle he plans to launch in Austin, Texas, later this year, were particularly concerning.

“Everything was pretty standard Elon gibberish through the first part of the call with the same promises and false statements that he normally makes. But then the questions got to robotaxi, and that’s when I got spooked,” he said. “It was a simple question into robotaxi and it turned into him stuttering for 10 minutes.”

Musk cast optimism about the future of the product, stating there will be “millions of Teslas operating autonomously in the second half of next year.”

He compared the way the cameras on the cars operate to the way human eyes work, but Gerber said he does not believe self-driving cars are capable of recreating what humans are capable of doing on the road.

“And he said, ‘We’re like humans but we have eight eyes.’ But you have no ears. You have no touch. You have no smell. You have no intuition, you’re nothing like a human,” he said. “If you think a camera is anything like your eye, you don’t know the first thing about biology. It’s infuriating.”

What People Are Saying

Tesla, in its first-quarter earnings report:Ā “Uncertainty in the automotive and energy markets continues to increase as rapidly evolving trade policy adversely impacts the global supply chain and cost structure of Tesla and our peers. This dynamic, along with changing political sentiment, could have a meaningful impact on demand for our products in the near-term. We remain committed to expanding our business model to include delivering autonomous robots across multiple form factors and use cases ā€“ powered by our real-world AI expertise ā€“ to our customers and for use in our factories, as we navigate these headwinds.”

Musk, during the earnings call:Ā “The DOGE team has made a lot of progress in addressing waste and fraud. But the natural blowback from that is those who were receiving the wasteful dollars and the fraudulent dollars will try to attack me and the DOGE team and anything associated with me.”

What Happens Next

Musk said he will reduce the amount of time he spends at DOGE starting next month, but he will still spend a day or two each week working on the government task force.

Whether his return to the company will cause a longterm stock increase is yet to be seen, but theĀ company’s stock did increase 6 percent on Wednesday.