Reality is catching up with Elon Musk.

Yesterday evening, Tesla reported first-quarter earnings for 2025, and they were abysmal: Profits dropped 71 percent from the same time last year.

Musk sounded bitter on the call with investors that followed, blaming the company’s misfortune on protesters who have raged at Tesla dealerships around the world over his role running DOGE and his ardent support of far-right politicians.

“The protests that you’ll see out there, they’re very organized. They’re paid for,” he said, without evidence.

Non-paywall link

  • Grizzlyboy@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    1 day ago

    The world would be better without you, Elon. And you’re such a sad little shit you’re probably reading these comments hoping someone will like you.

  • arc@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    Worth bearing in mind that EV sales increased something like 24% in Europe from last year, so Tesla (lack of) sales have to be adjusted for that. Even if the number of cars they sold had remained static it would still be troubling.

    • genevieve@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      1 day ago

      europe has so many ev’s that cheaper than tesla and with better build quality and service than tesla

      and 100% less naziism

      • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        4 hours ago

        and 100% less naziism

        For whatever reason this sparked a whole bunch of nonsense in my brain like “100% nazi-free chicken!”

        And “should I drink skim milk or 2% Nazi milk?”

        or “buy the new German EV, it’s got 50% less nazi than our leading competitors!”

        Thanks for that brainwave

        • P00ptart@lemmy.world
          0·
          3 hours ago

          That 50% that you built into the car, which half? Or do you grind it up into a paste and put in 50% by volume? Also, is it built into a specific part, or kind of spread throughout?

    • TammyTobacco@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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      1 day ago

      These are numbers for all of Q1 too, and people didn’t really start the protests until a few weeks to a month in. So in theory last quarter had a few more good weeks than next quarter will.

  • barneypiccolo@lemm.eeEnglish
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    1 day ago

    We haven’t heard much from him over the past few weeks, and now we get this earnings call, and it is far worse than expected. He’s known this was coming, and has been laying low, probably hoping things will improve some before making what he knows will be a disastrous earnings call. Its the equivalent of watching your diet 3 days before a doctor’s appointment, hoping your weight gain and cholesterol increase won’t be as bad as you know it is.

    Also, it’s a safe bet that his board of directors is livid, and that he has been ordered by his board to get back to work, or be removed as CEO of Tesla.

    There is almost certainly a shareholder class-action suit brewing over his reckless and irresponsible behavior over the last several months, which has directly caused severe, and probably irreparable damage to the company’s brand image AND it’s sales around the world, as well as tanking the stock price, an unforgiveable sin in the investing world. Now that the bubble has popped, it will never inflate again. As future earnings reports are released, and sales continue to slide, the stock will continue to decline, and the cycle will continue until bankruptcy. And it is all traceable to Skum’s self-indulgent, egotistical behavior.

    The only question is will Skum be the only defendant, or will the lawsuit also name the individual members of the board, for not reigning him in, or firing him. They don’t want to be sued alongside him, so they are forcing him to get back to work saving Tesla, thus letting them off the hook for legal liability.

    Its doubtful Skum will be able to save Tesla at this point, its almost certainly too late. It is also probably too late to avoid a shareholder lawsuit. Investors have lost millions of dollars, not due to the vagaries of the market, but due to Skum’s outrageous behavior, like throwing up celebratory Nazi salutes on national TV, which, as CEO, he should have realized would damage his company and its investors significantly.

    And arguing that he didn’t recognize the danger in advance is no excuse at all for a CEO, who should have been able to predict the response to his self-indulgent ego bender.

    Shareholders have lost many millions, and they won’t just let that go with an “Oh well.” He’s likely going to get sued, and the board is just making sure they don’t go down with him.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      Investors have lost millions of dollars, not due to the vagaries of the market, but due to Skum’s outrageous behavior, like throwing up celebratory Nazi salutes on national TV

      They lost millions, you say? I took a look and since Nazi Salute Day the value of Tesla has dropped on the order 500,000 million dollars.

  • rodneylives@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 days ago

    It is a mistake to lead off with “here’s the thing about Elon Musk,” because there’s LOADS of things with Musk, but in particular. Let’s set aside how ludicrous it is to claim that the protesters are being funded by some outside source, because sure that’s worked in the past, and of course it’s the Democrats, those notably cash-positive people, who are doing it.

    Elon Musk is THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD. If anyone could beat a theoretical money-backed protest against him, it would be him. Just offer to beat the offer of anyone funding the protesters. That’s it! If they’re only in it for the money then the protest would fold immediately.

    More than that, Musk has literally paid people to vote in his favor in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race! The levels of hypocrisy are so staggeringly great that it risks materializing actual hippopotamuses on his properties.