Tesla has been put through the wringer during CEO Elon Musk's absence.
The EV maker saw earnings plummet in the first quarter of this year, with net income cratering an astonishing 71 percent since the same period last year.
The root of all the trouble was Musk himself, as he embraced far-right ideologies and took on a position gutting the federal government — hugely unpopular moves with Tesla's left-leaning customer base that spawned an international protest movement against the company and eviscerated sales across key markets.
Musk's new buddies in Washington weren't helping his business fundamentals either. The Trump administration is planning to revoke EV tax credits and kill incentives for battery production in the US with its latest budget, not to mention its tariff war that's rattled international markets, directly undermining critical supply lines for Tesla.
And as Electrek reports, Musk finally seems to be realizing that his time in government is causing huge problems for his business interests.
Take those energy credits. In a statement posted to Musk's social media platform X-formerly-Twitter last week, Tesla wrote that "abruptly ending the energy tax credits would threaten America’s energy independence and the reliability of our grid."
Instead, the carmaker argued for a "sensible wind down" of residential and investment-based clean energy tax credits.
In a separate post, Musk pointed out that "there is no change to tax incentives for oil and gas, just EV/solar," underlining the Trump administration's staunch anti-clean energy stance.
Musk has also called out the Trump administration's tax and spending bill for increasing the budget deficit, tweeting that it "undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing."
It's a surprising moment of clarity for a businessman who willingly threw hundreds of millions of dollars behind Trump. The president has vowed to "drill, baby, drill," called climate change a "hoax," and shocked even oil and gas CEOs with his plans to roll back environmental rules.
For a time, Musk seemed to support those anti-environmental initiatives. Late last year, he publicly called on the government to scrap all electric car subsidies.
"I think we should get rid of all credits," he said at the time.
"Take away the subsidies," he tweeted back in July. "It will only help Tesla."
But now that Tesla is facing an existential crisis, Musk is seemingly having second thoughts about Trump and the GOP's aggressive anti-clean energy policies.
Could this be the beginning of Musk re-embracing his carmaker's original-but-since-deleted "Secret Master Plan" climate manifesto?
Or could all of this be grandstanding to put on the appearance that Musk has finally come to his senses to appease enraged Tesla investors and would-be customers?
The damage has certainly been done. Musk's actions have set Tesla's brand on fire, making it synonymous with an extreme right-wing worldview and torching desirability for its rapidly aging offerings.
Meanwhile, Musk's political allies are taking aim at the future of the EV and clean energy sector, potentially making matters even worse for the embattled carmaker.
Tesla's shares rallied last month, indicating widespread enthusiasm for Musk's return. But soon he'll have to show results.
More on Tesla: Elon Musk Reportedly Owes Donald Trump a Colossal Sum of Money
Share This Article