While waiting for Cousin Rob yesterday to take me for my first visit to Disneyland, I came across this story from Business Insider blaming Elon Musk’s “politics” for the decline of Tesla’s stock, which has taken a beating and fallen below its once stratospheric valuation of more than $1 trillion. The corporate media, which once celebrated Musk for making electric vehicles commercially viable and supposedly helping save the environment from global warming, has come to despise the entrepreneur because of his full-throated support for President Trump.
BI is among the least credible business news sources, particularly when it comes to reporting about Elon Musk. The online publication, previously known as Insider and owned by a German media conglomerate, three years ago published what I regard as one of the sleaziest stories in the history of American journalism. The story was about a former SpaceX flight attendant who alleged that Musk exposed himself while she was giving him a massage. BI’s reporting was based on evidence provided by the flight attendant’s friend, not direct evidence or statements from the flight attendant.
Excuse my cynicism, but a flight attendant who routinely gave Musk massages as part of her regular duties had an unusually liberal view of the “attendant” part of her responsibilities. She reportedly received a $250,000 settlement, which was apparently enough to keep her from talking directly about the indignity she allegedly suffered.
Musk denied the allegations and challenged his unidentified accuser to verify her claims by describing a part of his anatomy “not known by the public.” I’m still waiting for BI to report the information.
Nothingburger story
The corporate media breathlessly picked up Insider’s story, with the New York Times referring to the reporting as “explosive allegations.” The story proved to be a nothingburger, and predictions that it would force the resignation of Musk quickly proved unfounded.
SpaceX last December was valued $350 billion, making it the most valuable private startup in the world with a market capitalization rivaling some of the largest public companies. GM, whose CEO Mary Barra has received more fawning media coverage than any executive, is valued at this writing at $48 billion.
Tesla has lost more than four times GM’s entire value this year, and at this writing is still worth $907 billion.
SpaceX isn’t the only Musk holding to defy the corporate media’s allegations that the entrepreneur’s politics have harmed his business interests.
Destroyed Twitter?
After Musk acquired Twitter and slashed the staff responsible for the town hall sewer, the corporate media railed he had irreparably harmed the site. There were alarming reports of persons cancelling their accounts and dire predictions about the survival of Twitter, which Musk rebranded as X.
As recently as five months ago, New York Times reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, reportedly among that publication’s rising stars, gave a talk about how Musk destroyed Twitter.
For all Musk’s destruction, Bloomberg recently reported that X was in talks to raise money from investors at a valuation of at least $44 billion, which is what Musk paid for the site more than two years ago. Had Musk not acquired Twitter he likely would have been censored and possibly faced a permanent ban at the behest of the Biden Administration, whose successful efforts to silence critics on social media have been exposed.
As well, without Musk’s ownership of Twitter, Donald Trump might not have garnered such a decisive victory last November and possibly even lost the election.
When I saw BI’s headline about analysts blaming Musk’s politics for Tesla’s stock troubles, my immediate thought was, “Let me guess, one of those analysts was Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities and I’ll bet Tesla bull-turned-bear Ross Gerber is quoted in the story as well.”
My instincts proved spot on.
Ives is a dial-a-quote analyst whose presence in stories about Tesla are almost as certain as death and taxes. Gerber is a money manager who supposedly holds a small stake in Tesla, despite telling reporters the stock could fall as much as 50 percent. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t invest with a money manager who trashes his holdings and trumpets they will take a beating.
Steve Cohen and George Soros, considered two of the savviest investors of all time, apparently don’t place to much stock on the wisdom of Ives and Gerber.
Tesla’s stock took a beating in the fall of 2022, its shares plummeting 65 percent since the beginning of that year. The corporate media was quick to administer Tesla’s last rites, saying the brand was dead because of Elon Musk’s antics and his conservative political leanings.
The deservedly failing Los Angeles Times published commentaries like this one by former magazine editor and Santa Monica resident John Blumenthal who said he was “embarrassed” to be seen driving his Tesla in the company’s second biggest market.
Ives declared Tesla’s stock “a train wreck” and warned CNBC viewers he had removed the company from his “best ideas” list. Three days after Tesla’s stock hit its 52-week (intraday) low on January 6, 2023, Gerber declared that Musk’s bad media coverage “broke the stock” and demanded that Musk name him to the board.
By mid-February, Tesla’s stock more than doubled, netting Tesla’s biggest investors some $117 billion in collective profits, allowing them to make more on their holdings than all investors made on 496 individual S&P 500 stocks during the same time.
Soros and Cohen were among those who made a killing, having made big bets on Tesla in the fourth quarter when the stock had already tanked.
Soros increased his Tesla holdings 211 percent to 132,046 shares. Soros also placed a call option on 200,000 additional Tesla shares, allowing him to buy more Tesla stock at a guaranteed price within a certain period. Meanwhile, Steve Cohen’s Point 72 amassed 878,000 Tesla shares in the fourth quarter, as well as 60,500 bullish call options.
To be fair, Ives told Business Insider that he still expected Tesla will ultimately reap the benefits of Musk’s White House influence but that part of his message was easy to miss because it didn’t fit BI’s preferred narrative.
Code Red for Humanity
It’s telling how the corporate media is rejoicing about the decline in Tesla’s stock and celebrating protesters who want to disrupt the company’s sales given all the alarming climate change warnings promoted by the Biden Administration and every major U.S. publication.
In July 2022, President Biden declared that climate change was “literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world” and that scientists had declared it “code red for humanity.” Electric vehicles were central to Biden’s strategy to confront global warming, which called for cutting America’s emissions in half by the end of the decade.
Tesla still accounts for more than 40% of America’s EV market, and more than 50% of California’s, which mandates that zero emission vehicles must comprise 35% of new vehicle registrations this year. Tesla’s sales declined in 2024, which in California Bloomberg blamed on Musk’s unpopularity in the state because of his politics. Another possible reason is that various trims of its popular Model 3 vehicle weren’t eligible for lucrative tax credits.
Take Tesla out of the EV picture, Americans wanting affordable electric vehicles must purchase mostly foreign made vehicles. GM’s Chevy Blazer, Chevy Equinox, and Cadillac Optiq EVs are manufactured in Mexico, where Ford proudly builds its electric Mustang. Kia’s most popular EVs are made overseas.
Polestar builds some of its EVs in the U.S., but the company is owned by a China-based conglomerate. Other than Tesla, the only popular and affordable American-made EV is Volkswagen’s ID.4, which is manufactured in Tennessee.
All Tesla vehicles sold in the U.S. are manufactured in the U.S.
Right wing politics
The corporate media routinely slams Musk for his “right wing politics” and his vociferous opposition to diversity mandates. Yet the corporate media rarely mentions that the CEO of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell, is a woman, as are the company’s co-lead engineers. Despite professing until recently a commitment to diversity, the only women on GM leadership management team are involved in HR and PR. Not what I’d expect from a company whose CEO is close to Biden and received billions in taxpayer grants and subsidies from his administration.
There’s much to criticize about Elon Musk, but those who wish ill will on Tesla appear to be many of the same folks who celebrated Tesla’s sustainability efforts. Rest assured, if Tesla tanks, so will America’s EV market. Many of those feigning worries about climate change apparently place a greater premium on their political and ideological views than their environmental concerns.