With the stock cut in half, Tesla investors want their CEO back

• Tesla stock has crashed in recent months, down 52% from its mid-December high.
• Investors are concerned about CEO Elon Musk’s time commitment to the company.
• “It’s become clear he’s now spending more time on DOGE than anything else,” one analyst said.

As Tesla’s stock price crashes, frustrated investors are yearning for their CEO back.

As you may have heard, Elon Musk has instead been in Washington, DC overseeing a cost-cutting government overhaul. As he’s worked to scrap entire agencies and lay off thousands, the stock has slipped. Shares are now down in each of the past seven weeks, since Musk first went to Washington.

The cumulative damage is stunning. At Monday lows — amid a 4% sell-off for the tech-heavy Nasdaq — Tesla stock had plummeted 52% from a mid-December record high, and was down more than 40% year-to-date.

Much of the angst among Tesla investors stems from concerns that Musk doesn’t appear to be committing enough time to the company in his CEO role — at least compared to his prior level of involvement.

Musk, who famously slept on the floor of Tesla’s factories during hard times, has slept on the floor of his DOGE government office, just steps from the White House.

In addition to leading SpaceX, X, xAI, and Neuralink, Musk is also an avid gamer and the father to more than 10 kids.

Add that to another fundamental issue dragging on Tesla — plummeting vehicle sales in locations like European and China — and investors haven’t given a lot to be excited about.

Tesla investors aren’t thrilled

One place to take the pulse of investor dissatisfaction with Musk’s non-Tesla activities is the retail stock-trading platform StockTwits.

A recent poll asked “Is Musk’s White House focus hurting Tesla?” to which an 60% replied “Yes – Tesla needs his focus.” 25% said no, citing media hype for fueling the narrative, while the remaining 15% blamed non-Musk forces.

Garrett Nelson, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, said his firm senses investor frustration.

“We think shareholders have legitimate concerns about Elon Musk being spread too thin and it’s become clear he’s now spending more time on DOGE than anything else,” he told BI.

Nelson has a simple solution, since he says Musk’s DOGE focus is unlikely to conclude until the middle of 2026: promote someone.

They need to “elevate a member of senior management to take on additional responsibilities to keep Tesla on track with its near and intermediate-term goals,” he said.

But for long-time Tesla investor Ross Gerber, that might not be enough.

In an interview late last month, Gerber told BI that Musk has damaged Tesla’s brand and that the “simplest solution” would be for him to step back entirely from day-to-day operations. Gerber thinks someone else should be hired as CEO to continue to own the stock and closely support the company.

“The truth of the matter is the company should be run by somebody who isn’t so political and can bring the brand back, if that’s possible,” he said.

The catch-22

However, Nelson and Gerber say there’s a big risk that Tesla stock could continue to decline if Musk stepped down as CEO.

“If you’re a Tesla shareholder, you’re caught in a catch-22, whereby Musk’s presence accounts for a significant percentage of the company’s value, but his presence is also starting to weigh on the company’s brand perception and financial performance,” Nelson said.

Gerber estimated that “about $150 to $200 per share” of Tesla is based on Elon’s presence. Tesla was trading above $300 per share when Gerber made that comment.

For Dan Ives, research analyst at Wedbush and a long-time bull on Tesla stock, it doesn’t matter. He says there’s no chance Musk would ever step down.

“Musk is going to be CEO of Tesla for at least the next five to seven years and likely longer,” Ives told BI last week.

Ives argued that Tesla is in its most innovative period in the last five years and that the stock’s future value hinges on its autonomous and robotics developments rather than its EV sales.

“Many times over the last 15 years Musk has been counted out and so has Tesla, and we view this as no different,” Ives said.