Elon Versus The World

Why Tesla’s CEO needs to change course.

- Ainsley Harris

Yo Elon, you okay? Asking for a friend. I think you know her: the planet.

Over the past year, Tesla cofounder and CEO Elon Musk’s leadership has been as erratic as his company’s performance. He announced that Tesla would close its stores, only to reverse that decision less than two weeks later. He promised for almost a year that the “Enhanced Summon” feature, which would allow drivers to have their Tesla pick them up curbside, was imminent, only to acknowledge at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in June that “there’s a lot of complexity in parking lots.” Perhaps most important, after months of stressing that Tesla must become profitable as a matter of “life or death,” Musk changed his stance yet again, saying that growth is paramount and profitability can wait.

This backtracking, along with a disastrous first quarter in which Tesla lost $702 million, helps explain both the record number of short sellers betting against the company as well as its stock shedding almost $30 billion in market cap over six months.