Musk Is Struggling to Understand What's Happening Around Him, Says Former Tesla Exec

Tesla investors are clearly worried that CEO Elon Musk's fiery new pledge to build a third US political party could inflict even more damage on the embattled company.

The EV maker has been put through the wringer by Musk's antics, from cratering sales worldwide to an enormous drop in year-over-year revenues.

The company's finances are in free fall. And now that president Donald Trump's so-called "big, beautiful bill" has passed through Congress, Tesla's crisis could soon take a major turn for the worse, the Financial Times reports.

To insiders, it seems that Musk has been struggling to understand what's happening around him, nevermind the impacts of his own erratic actions — and his latest moment of lucidity is too little, too late.

"Elon has finally woken up to this, but talk about a day late and a dollar short," one former Tesla executive told the FT.

Trump's bill is set to obliterate clean air credits, which have historically represented billions of dollars worth of profits to Tesla, a sizable chunk of its overall revenues.

The Trump administration is also planning to blow up a $7,500 federal tax credit for eligible EV purchases and leases, as well as wind and solar energy tax credits. Tesla has greatly benefited from both.

Finally, the president's unpredictable tariff war has thrown Tesla's supply chain with China into chaos.

In short, Trump's second term has been nothing short of a disaster for the EV maker's bottom line, a bizarre reality considering its CEO has spent hundreds of millions getting him elected.

But Trump's bill proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back, ending their budding bromance abruptly in dramatic fashion.

"This is terrible policy and a devastating blow for Tesla’s bottom line," the former executive told the FT. "It’s everything together: tariffs, the $7,500 consumer credit, manufacturing tax credits, charging credits, and solar residential credits."

Whether Musk's reinvigorated attempts to shoehorn himself into the world of politics will turn things around for Tesla feels like an extraordinary long shot. The carmaker's efforts to double down on a Waymo-like autonomous robotaxi service have been suffering from technical glitches and dangerous close calls.

Consumer demand for its vehicles has dropped considerably, despite surging interest in EVs overall, particularly in Europe. That's in large part due to Musk's alienating embrace of extreme far-right ideologies, and any new fans he gained in that world are now put off by his feud with Trump.

And any hints of contrition from Musk still feel opaque at best.

In a tweet last week, Musk somberly reflected on parading across the stage next to Argentinian president Javier Milei in February, wielding a shiny metal-plated chainsaw in a ham-handed gesture representing his indiscriminate gutting of federal agencies.

"Milei gave me the chainsaw backstage and I ran with it, but, in retrospect, it lacked empathy," he wrote.

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