{"id":82498,"date":"2025-05-20T11:24:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T15:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=82498"},"modified":"2025-05-20T11:24:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T15:24:18","slug":"elon-musk-lies-tesla-demand-seals-its-fate-stay-ceo-with-more-shares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=82498","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk lies about Tesla’s demand, seals its fate as he says he’ll stay CEO with more shares"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\"\"<\/figure>\n

Elon Musk says he wants to stay CEO of Tesla for at least the next five years and have more controlling shares in the company.<\/p>\n

This will most likely seal Tesla\u2019s fate with Musk\u2019s, as shareholders will likely approve of this despite his toxicity and lies.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As I wrote in my recent article, \u2018The Tesla (TSLA) dilemma<\/a>,\u2019 the company is done if it stays attached to Elon Musk\u2019s toxicity, but the stock will undoubtedly crash if he leaves, as the current valuation is purely based on shareholders believing in his stock-pumping claims about self-driving cars and robots.<\/p>\n

Musk created the current situation at Tesla, which he pushed to go all-in on autonomy despite his being wrong about Tesla solving autonomy for years. In the meantime, Tesla has released a single new vehicle over the last five years, the Cybertruck, and it\u2019s a flop.<\/p>\n

\tAdvertisement – scroll for more content<\/span><\/p>\n

His backing of divisive politics, rapprochement with Russia, and constant promotion of proven misinformation on social media have resulted in Musk being despised by the majority of the population, especially Tesla\u2019s customer base.<\/p>\n

The toxicity of Musk\u2019s brand has leaked to Tesla and the company has been in a clear decline. Tesla\u2019s vehicle sales were down for the first time in 2024 and the decline is accelerating in 2025.<\/p>\n

Tesla\u2019s sales were down by about 50,000 units <\/a>in the first quarter of 2025, and they are tracking similarly<\/a> in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

Today, at the\u00a0Qatar\u00a0Economic Forum hosted by Bloomberg, Musk denied the situation entirely.<\/p>\n

He said (via AP):<\/p>\n

\n

When questioned about Tesla\u2019s weakening sales in the first quarter and April sales thus far in Europe, Musk said the business has \u201calready turned around,\u201d adding that \u201cEurope is our weakest market\u201d and that Tesla was \u201cstrong everywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a lie. <\/p>\n

Tesla\u2019s sales in China in Q2 2025 are tracking about 10,000 units below the same period in 2024, despite record incentives and the new Model Y being in volume production.<\/p>\n

In the US, data is more opaque, but Tesla is estimated to be down in the market despite offering more discounts than ever<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Europe is indeed Tesla\u2019s weakest market, but there\u2019s no sign that it has \u201calready turned around\u201d as Musk claims.<\/p>\n

Despite having the new Model Y available in Q2, sales are way down compared to last year, and it is tracking similarly to Q1 2025, which was a disaster and Tesla blamed it on the Model Y changeover:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

It won\u2019t be able to blame the Model Y in Q2 and will need another explanation for the poor sales performance in Europe. Tesla is also offering 0% financing at a high cost in most European markets to counter this clear decline in demand.<\/p>\n

Instead of this hard data, Musk backed his lies by claiming that Tesla\u2019s current high stock price proves that the business is good:<\/p>\n

\n

Musk said the market is the ultimate scorecard for Tesla\u2019s state of business. \u201c[Tesla] stock wouldn\u2019t be trading near all-time highs\u201d if the business was struggling, he said. While Tesla stock has recovered this year, it still down 13% year to date and off 30% from its all-time high.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The stock price is only up because more people are buying shares than selling them, and they could be buying them for many reasons that have nothing to do with Tesla\u2019s business doing well.<\/p>\n

Musk himself has previously said that Tesla\u2019s stock is \u201cworth nothing\u201d if the company can\u2019t solve autonomy, which attached a lot of Tesla\u2019s valuation to autonomous driving. Many Tesla investors are simply holding on to Musk\u2019s claims that Tesla is on the verge of solving autonomy \u2013 despite him saying it would happen by the end of every year since 2019.<\/p>\n

The CEO was then asked if he was committed to staying as head of Tesla for the next five years, to which he answered \u2018yes\u2019.<\/p>\n

But he said that he would need more shares in Tesla.<\/p>\n

Musk claimed that it wasn\u2019t about money but control over the company:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI can\u2019t be sitting there and wondering if I\u2019m going to be tossed out. \u201cNow let\u2019s move on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tesla shareholders are currently suing the CEO over threatening them not to build AI products at Tesla <\/a>if he doesn\u2019t get more control, through shares, in the company.<\/p>\n

Electrek\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n

Blatant lies. We have the data. We know Tesla\u2019s sales are down in virtually all markets. To counter the declining demand, Tesla is offering record discounts and incentives in most markets.<\/p>\n

We know Tesla doesn\u2019t do that with strong demand. The automaker is currently throttling down production and offering discounts. Does that sound like the demand is good? No.<\/p>\n

I say that he is sealing Tesla\u2019s fate by saying that he will remain CEO because Tesla shareholders will most likely approve of this. They know the stock price will tumble without his \u201ccorporate puffery<\/a>.\u201d They are OK with letting Tesla\u2019s EV business melt just for the hope that he might finally be right about autonomy and Tesla might see light at the end of the tunnel and justify its $1 trillion valuation.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a fallacy. <\/p>\n

Elon and Tesla were wrong about unsupervised autonomy working on HW2.5. They were wrong about it working on HW3.0. And they were more likely than not wrong about it working on HW4.<\/p>\n

They have made some impressive progress, and they might eventually make it work at scale on HW5 in the next few years. However, by then, there will be plenty of competition, and Tesla is already behind competitors like Waymo, which is already available in several markets and provides hundreds of thousands of paid rides every week.<\/p>\n

In addition to the competition, Tesla will also have a giant liability for promising unsupervised self-driving on millions of vehicles produced since 2016 and not being able to deliver on this promise.<\/p>\n

All of that while its core EV business is declining. <\/p>\n

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FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.<\/em> More.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Elon Musk says he wants to stay CEO of Tesla for at least the next five years and have more controlling shares in the company. This will most likely seal Tesla\u2019s fate with Musk\u2019s, as shareholders will likely approve of this despite his toxicity and lies. As I wrote in my recent article, \u2018The Tesla […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}