An early investor in Tesla has called for Elon Musk to leave his post as the company’s CEO if he doesn’t depart from his current job focusing on cutting down the federal government.
Ross Gerber told Sky News that Musk has lost his focus and that he’s now too “divisive,” pointing to Musk’s leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk’s slashing of federal agencies has prompted outrage and protests against Tesla, with owners being urged to sell their vehicles.
“I think Tesla needs a new CEO, and I decided today I was going to start saying it, and so this is the first show that I’m saying it on,” Gerber told Sky.
“It’s time for somebody to run Tesla. The business has been neglected for too long,” he added. “There are too many important things Tesla is doing, so either Elon should come back to Tesla and be the CEO of Tesla and give up his other jobs, or he should focus on the government and keep doing what he is doing but find a suitable CEO of Tesla.”
The investor said the company is in crisis and that he has sold off a significant number of shares in the last few months. Its market value has dropped more than $800 billion since December, and it was down another 4 percent in Tuesday stock trading.
The demand for electric cars appears to have reached its zenith in several Western markets amid steeper competition from cheaper Chinese alternatives. Concerns from investors also come as President Donald Trump’s ongoing trade wars will likely lead to higher costs.
Gerber argued that Musk has been spread too thin since his purchase of Twitter in 2022 and that his work for Trump, along with his posts on social media, have brought negative attention to the company.
“The company’s reputation has just been destroyed by Elon Musk,” said Gerber. “Sales are plummeting so, yeah, it’s a crisis. You literally can’t sell the best product in the marketplace because the CEO is so divisive.”
This comes as one of the company’s biggest supporters has said that Musk has to cut back on his government work to limit the damage as the company is in the middle of a “brand tornado crisis moment,” The Guardian reported.
The managing director at the financial company Wedbush, Dan Ives, who has called himself a Tesla “core bull,” wrote in a note to investors that “The brand damage started off as limited in our view based on our initial survey work … but now has spread globally over the last few weeks into what we would characterize as a brand tornado crisis moment for Musk and Tesla.”
On Thursday, Tesla announced a recall of 46,000 Cybertrucks to correct a panel that may detach when driving.
Protesters said Wednesday that they were planning their largest day of action to date, with 500 protests set to take place at Tesla showrooms across the world on March 29. The Vancouver International Auto Show blocked Tesla from the event because of security concerns.
“The Vancouver International Auto Show has removed Tesla as a participant in this week’s event after the automaker was provided multiple opportunities to voluntarily withdraw,” the show’s executive director, Eric Nicholl, said in a statement. “The Vancouver Auto Show’s primary concern is the safety of attendees, exhibitors, and staff. This decision will ensure all attendees can be solely focused on enjoying the many positive elements of the event.”
More than 375,000 people in Canada have signed a petition started in late February to remove Musk’s Canadian citizenship amid Trump’s trade war with the neighbor to the north and the president’s continued talk of making Canada the 51st state.
Musk told Fox News this week that those protesting Tesla are “deranged.”
“They basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla because we’re stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government,” said Musk.
“Tesla and Musk are facing a defining chapter in their future, and how Musk handles this next few months will be pivotal to the long-term growth trajectory of Tesla in our view,” Ives told investors. “Tesla is Musk and Musk is Tesla … they are synonymous and attached together and cannot be separated.”
“Investors need to see Musk take a step back and balance his Doge and Tesla CEO roles,” he added.
