Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, appears practically at the alternative for the launch of the German general electoral campaign.
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No one expected a lot of income from the Tesla fourth quarter, since 2024, he saw his first year of falling sales of electric vehicles since his return 15 years ago. But the results of income and profits were not only mobile – they were worse than the planned analysts. On the call of the company’s profits, however, the distortion of the reality of Elon Musk was fully while he pumped the title with stories of autonomous taxis, humanoid robots and complaints Still not supported by the prowess of the company’s AI.
Investments in these areas “will bear immense fruits in the future. Immense. In fact, on such a scale that it is difficult to understand, “he proclaimed during the January 30 call. “I see a path – I do not say that it is an easy path – but I see a path here towards Tesla being the most precious society in the world from afar … where Tesla is worth more than the next five combined companies.”
It is a ridiculous of 15 billions of dollars, but the loyal shareholders bought it. Tesla’s shares increased 3% on Thursday and an additional 1% on Friday. Buyers were not disturbed only by two soft items – a gain of $ 600 million on crypto participations and $ 692 million in credit sales EV – more than half Net income of $ 2.3 billion in Tesla during the quarter. (The first is very volatile; the second is likely to dive while Trump rejects the rules of federal emissions.) Nor they were not disturbed that his raw beneficiary margin of closely observed for car sales continued to slip when Tesla is known to enjoy the margin bonuses above the average of the automotive industry.
Tesla’s $ 100,000 cybertruck sales have been lower than Musk expectations so far.
Getty images
The moving of the action “did not experience any relationship with the financial performance of the company … or to its growth prospects in the coming year,” wrote JP Morgan’s actions, Ryan Brinkman, noting that the company has become “completely divorced fundamentals”.
So, as the same, Tsla is fine. But for how long?
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Because right now, Tesla is not an AI business. His company manufactures cars and batteries and provides EV load services; It is the source of more than 90% of its income. And to make it grow, you need a full -time CEO, not someone who juggles a Trump administration role while directing Spacex, X, XAI, The Boring Company and Neuralink. A CEO who is not likely to harm the brand’s image by kissing politics or with controversial behavior would not do bad either.
“It is the private company of Elon which is public for any reason”
“But that will never happen,” said Tesla’s investor Ross Gerber, CEO of the heritage director based in Los Angeles, Gerber Kawasaki. Fan Musk for a long time and intendant of Tesla’s participation of $ 100 million in his business, he has been embittered on him since his takeover on Twitter.
Gerber knows what he is talking about. He tried and failed to obtain enough votes to hang a seat on the board of directors of Tesla last June. Not that it would have imported a lot. Due to the participation of 13% of musk in the company and the close control of its board of directors, any change of management would only be residents.
“Even if you put a new CEO in there, it would be just somehow” sit here, but I will always continue to do everything I do, “he said.” If you buy the Stock, you must accept that it will not be like an ordinary company.
The other problem is that Musk does not have a clear lieutenant at Tesla who directs the show when he is distracted. There is no COO and no president. A number of VPs that the stars have started to get up were sidelined or left.
Tesla shareholders who do not buy the grandiose claims of Musk – the humanoid robot “Optimus” alone could generate “north of 10 billions of dollars” – must also face its increasingly bizarre behavior, in Private for a CEO of the public company which is supposed to be responsible before a board of directors. But in this case, the board of directors did not interceive because it has become remarkably rich in Tesla’s stock. (President Robyn Denholm made a profit of $ 32.5 million in late November when she exercised 112,390 options while Tesla jumped after Trump’s victory.)
Long before Musk was accused of having given a nazi style greeting during a rally of Trump’s victory this month the electric vehicle markets in the United States at the end of last fall, the annual survey Interbrand on the most precious brands in the world has shown a 9% drop for the Musk car company.
This reputation has a direct impact on the decisions of Americans on the car to buy. Strategic Vision, a research firm based in San Diego which questions tens of thousands of consumers every week, found this month not Consider one Tesla as their next vehicle, compared to 48% in 2023.
If you are a car manufacturer “playing a long game, it’s unforgivable,” said the CEO of Strategic Vision, Alexander Edwards.
It is not as if these problems did not take place clearly in the figures of Tesla.
Investor Ross Gerber speaks at a conference in Beverly Hills, California.
Getty images
Until 2022, Musk loudly predicted that Tesla sales would increase to 20 million units by the end of the decade. With Tesla global sales down 1% in 2024 to 1.79 million units, he does not speak like that now. The drop in the United States alone was greater: 5.6%. And it’s even worse in California, the best market for electric vehicles in North America, with a 12%slide. Meanwhile, sales from EU countries are also emerging, they fell 13% last year.
The American sales of Tesla are not likely to grow a lot or this year, due to difficult competition from the automotive brands General Motors, Hyundai, Kia, Honda, Rivian, Lucid and other motor vehicles that continue to deploy electric and cheaper vehicles. Cybertruck of $ 100,000 from Tesla, a military style pick-up that seems to be out of the Minecraft video game, was a sales failure, reaching less than a quarter of 250,000 musc at an annual rate planned a year ago . The Tesla semi for a long time is underway for 2026, but it is unlikely to generate a large sales volume. Unsurprisingly, Musk did not set a firm sale target for 2025, beyond the expectation of volume increases thanks to a model Y and cheaper and cheaper cars due to the first half.
“Automatic learning has no meaning; He has false confidence.
This explains why Musk bets that the future of the company on autonomous robotaxis – another in a line of overwhelmed promises.
Musk says that if everything is going well, Tesla will launch an autonomous cybercab in 2026. But that seems unlikely when the company has not yet controlled its functionality of “complete self-clarifications” which requires supervision of drivers and led at least 13 accidents and several government surveys and several government surveys. And it seems even more when the version of Tesla autonomous cars sails with only cameras and without the Lidar Radar and Laser which has done Waymo – which already operates a viable Robocab service in several cities – the industry leader in autonomous driving.
Tesla Robotaxi Cybercab exhibited at the Los Angeles 2024 car show.
AFP via Getty Images
“Humans lead without shooting their eyes, unless you are Superman,” said Musk this week. “Humans lead just with the eyes and a … brain. The digital eye equivalent and a brain are cameras and digital neural nets or AI. »»
It’s a good line but a bit of a roll of the eyes.
“There are two problems with this analogy,” said Phil Koopman, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies autonomous vehicles. “One is that people’s eyes are really incredibly good and that Tesla’s cameras are zero at night”, when they often manage to correctly detect road risks in the dark, he declared. And secondly, while humans often react to the new and unknown driving conditions, the difficulties of Tesla software. “Automatic learning lacks vapor before moving on to common sense,” he said. “Automatic learning has no meaning; He has false confidence.
With Tesla, there is also another false trust – in Musk and the idea that her plans of brilliant objects for the future of Tesla are a more intelligent piece than to improve the things she already does.
“Tesla is a phenomenal company that simply focused on climate change – transport and energy that has a tension,” said Gerber. “The fact that this is now advancing robotics and cybercabs is only his pivot because no one wants to buy his products – because of him. But they are always incredible products and people buy them anyway.
