{"id":34065,"date":"2025-07-10T17:35:41","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T17:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=34065"},"modified":"2025-07-10T17:35:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T17:35:41","slug":"elon-musk-is-still-the-tesla-wild-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=34065","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk is still the Tesla wild card"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=6ff77efe-884c-492a-a172-e205fced9b33\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Here we go again. That must have been the first thought on the minds of many Tesla shareholders this week as Elon Musk waded back into the political fray, declaring his intention to launch a third party to rival the Republicans and Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>It is less than two months since Musk\u2019s moonlighting for Donald Trump\u2019s administration led a group of Tesla shareholders to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/6b528d41-7b0b-43d5-8eac-8bba4c9dcb96\" data-trackable=\"link\">call <\/a>for their chief executive to devote at least 40 hours a week to his day job, and the latest distraction wiped 7 per cent from the stock price on Monday. Musk was unmoved. He <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1942613724017352971\" data-trackable=\"link\">told<\/a> one analyst who suggested the board should tie his pay to the time he spends at work to \u201cshut up\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>But at a time when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/35edec46-ef7b-4f9b-b85a-25174e6e07fa\" data-trackable=\"link\">Tesla<\/a> is facing sagging sales and mounting competition, anxiety is on the rise and activists are again urging the company\u2019s board to hold its CEO to account. The financial squeeze has raised a question over the carmaker\u2019s heavy investments: Despite a severe cut to capital spending in the latest quarter, free cash flow still amounted to only about half its quarterly average over the previous three years.<\/p>\n<p>Viewed through the lens of the company\u2019s stock price, however, Tesla\u2019s shareholders would seem to have little reason to feel blue. True, much of the euphoria that pumped up the shares following Trump\u2019s re-election has leaked away. But they are still up 15 per cent since the election, handily outperforming the wider market. Tesla\u2019s market cap still dwarfs the rest of the car industry, even though it only accounts for about 2 per cent of global auto sales.<\/p>\n<p>The Musk effect still underpins Tesla\u2019s market cap. The shareholders who have pumped up its stock price are fixated on the technology future that he has conjured up, not the electric car business that is the company\u2019s bread and butter today.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n-content-layout\" data-component=\"flourish\" data-component-id=\"24180837\" data-component-type=\"flourish-in-article\">\n<figure class=\"n-content-picture n-content-layout__container\"><a href=\"#24180837\"><picture data-asset-type=\"flourish\" data-flourish-id=\"24180837\" data-flourish-type=\"visualisation\">\n<div id=\"24180837\" class=\"cp-message o-message o-message--inform o-message--notice\" data-o-component=\"o-message\">\n<div class=\"o-message__container\">\n<div class=\"o-message__content\">\n<p class=\"o-message__content-main\">Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/picture><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Morgan Stanley, for instance, estimated Tesla\u2019s auto business accounts for less than a fifth of the company\u2019s potential value. Most of the rest depends on its cars achieving full autonomy: After that, it can start to rake in fees from running a network of robotaxis, while also cashing in on the software and services the company\u2019s customers will use once they no longer need to keep their attention on the road.<\/p>\n<p>Full autonomy has been a long time coming. It is nine years since Musk first laid out his robotaxi plans. But he knows how to keep the futuristic vision alive \u2014 and make it one that only he can deliver. This week, for instance, he promised that Grok, the large language model from another of his companies, xAI, would soon be embedded in Tesla vehicles \u2014 a taste of things to come, when artificial intelligence transforms the experience in robot cars.<\/p>\n<p>Could anyone else persuade investors to suspend their scepticism for so long? The huge Musk premium in Tesla\u2019s shares is an extreme version of Silicon Valley founder syndrome, the belief that only a company\u2019s founder has the vision, and the authority, to pursue truly groundbreaking new ideas (Musk wasn\u2019t around at Tesla\u2019s actual founding, though he was an early investor and became a member of the board soon after).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rubbing more salt into the wounds of shareholder activists this week was the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/07\/09\/business\/tesla-shareholder-meeting-2025.html\" data-trackable=\"link\"> revelation<\/a> that Tesla had failed to meet a legal requirement to hold its annual shareholder meeting on time. The event will now take place in November, nearly four months late. <\/p>\n<p>For boardroom experts such as Nell Minow who have long complained about Musk\u2019s approach to governance and the response of Tesla\u2019s board, this amounted to open contempt for normal corporate transparency: \u201cThis is one where he\u2019s really backed himself into a corner. The requirements are very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Musk told Tesla shareholders before news of his plans for a third party broke that he would give the company much more of his attention. But there are other things that Tesla\u2019s directors could be doing to assuage investor\u2019s worries. One would be to work with him to rebuild Tesla\u2019s executive ranks, which were depleted by another senior departure last week, as well as laying out a long-term succession plan.<\/p>\n<aside aria-labelledby=\"aside-label\" class=\"n-content-recommended--single-story n-content-recommended--inset\" data-component=\"recommended\">\n<p class=\"n-content-recommended__title o3-type-body-highlight\">Recommended<\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser o-teaser--article o-teaser--small o-teaser--stacked o-teaser--has-image js-teaser\" data-id=\"aaf1a903-1936-4807-9fa0-6fbbe2485edb\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-container js-teaser-image-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/aaf1a903-1936-4807-9fa0-6fbbe2485edb\" data-trackable=\"image-link\" data-trackable-context-story-link=\"image-link\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-placeholder\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2048\/1152\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"o-teaser__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2F__origami%2Fservice%2Fimage%2Fv2%2Fimages%2Fraw%2Fhttps%253A%252F%252Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%252Fproduction%252F444c59da-9722-4aac-be08-4ccf1e8a1fe6.jpg%3Fsource%3Dnext-article%26fit%3Dscale-down%26quality%3Dhighest%26width%3D700%26dpr%3D1?source=next&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;dpr=2&amp;width=240\" alt=\"A montage showing Elon Musk, Donald Trump, the Tesla logo and $100 bills\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Another would be to solve the mess caused by a Delaware court\u2019s rejection of Musk\u2019s $56bn stock compensation plan. Musk has <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1746999488252703098\" data-trackable=\"link\">warned<\/a> he might lose interest in Tesla if he is not given a larger ownership stake. <\/p>\n<p>Who knows, maybe Tesla\u2019s directors could manage to organise annual meetings on time in future. The one thing they will probably never do, though, is prevent their CEO from blindsiding his own shareholders the next time he gets carried away with an idea that has nothing to do with electric cars.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/mailto:richard.waters@ft.com\" data-trackable=\"link\"><em>richard.waters@ft.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/6ff77efe-884c-492a-a172-e205fced9b33\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}