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Tesla Profits Drop 71% Amid Backlash to Elon Musk's Role Under Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/business/tesla-earnings-elon-musk.html
48reaperducer1w ago

Comments

techpineapple1w ago
Tesla up 4% today and 4% after hours.
cosmicgadget1w ago
4% during market hours because Trump has indicated he is waving the white flag on tariffs.

After hours... maybe a low volume pump for tomorrow's dump? It's a meme stock, fundamentals don't apply.

mullingitover1w ago
Down 37.26% YTD. These earnings numbers didn't take anyone by surprise.

Hit from both ends: they're shutting down sales of their highest margin vehicles in China completely, and about to get tariffed to hell on their LFP battery packs from China for their high-volume domestic vehicles.

All this of course was made possible because the CEO knowingly demolished the brand's image, and neglected his responsibilities at the firm in order to campaign for the man who would start the trade war that's killing them now (not to mention spending hundreds of millions to buy his election).

HN doesn't have images, so you'll have to manually picture the guy in the hot dog suit saying "we're all looking for the guy who did this."

bdangubic1w ago
Tesla up 4% AH because Elon said he will cut his time as govie where it should have dropped 90% on that news :)
mullingitover1w ago
The media is really embarrassing itself with this abject failure in reporting.

He must step back by law because the raging conflict of interest, wherein a captain of industry is allowed to personally raid US government offices and fire his own regulators, all while exfiltrating data on the populace, is only allowed to go on for a maximum of six months.

bdangubic1w ago
following the news though I don’t think the law matters much anymore in the US of A…
Analemma_1w ago
I'm pretty sure the parent's comment should be read as extremely sarcastic.
foobarian1w ago
What law exactly, though. If a president wants some IT work done, they should in theory be able to delegate to an arbitrary contractor. And that contractor could be empowered to implement the executive's dictates.
mullingitover1w ago
Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 202(a). As a Special Government Employee he's not allowed to work more than 180 days out of 365 (and this

> they should in theory be able to delegate to an arbitrary contractor

Nothing stopping them, as long as they're able to follow 41 U.S. Code § 2303 regarding conflicts of interest.

I know it's controversial right now, but I'm going to come out and say it: corruption is bad. We shouldn't be allowing companies to run amok and capture their regulators. That's putting unelected corporations in power over the people, which will not end well.

insane_dreamer1w ago
> by law

we are well past the point where _by law_ matters to this Administration

Analemma_1w ago
That doesn't mean much by itself: the entire market is up after-hours because Trump is surrendering on the China tariffs.
Zigurd1w ago
It was up ahead of the earnings call, too. To see one reason why, go to YouTube and search "Tesla earnings." You get 20 channels of stock touts you've never heard of and wouldn't trust to estimate the price of pizza.
rsynnott1w ago
Trump blinked on tariffs, which of course muddies the waters. Though, also, after hours is _weird_, particularly on meme stocks/meme-stock-adjacent things like Tesla.
cosmicgadget1w ago
GianFabien1w ago
Wonder why the shareholders are not replacing Elon with somebody who will remain completely focused, dedicated and committed to running Tesla.
zzzeek1w ago
maybe they're gullible and dim ? after all, they hadn't sold their TSLA when Musk clearly started losing his mind after buying Twitter, they must be on board with Team Musk
cosmicgadget1w ago
Shareholders vote for the board right? That's a pretty hefty degree of separation.

Also if Elon leaves or is forced out it's an immediate drop in share price. He has them by the balls.

bdangubic1w ago
they have him by the balls too… Tesla’s share price going down to what $150-ish and Elon is in big big financial trouble
bdangubic1w ago
Tesla would be roughly $57/share on that news within a week :) Only Elon can fantasies for a decade and have loyal army of followers buying it, without Elon Tesla instantly becomes what it actually is - an electric car company and that translates to $57/share
Zigurd1w ago
That's exactly it. Nobody will take the job to get blamed for a share price collapse. Elon has to carry that to term.
GianFabien1w ago
Even at half of Elon's salary there are lots of folks who would be happy to take the money and the fall.
ChrisArchitect1w ago
mac3n1w ago
I don't suppose the build quality of cybertrucks has anything to do with this?