'Gasoline On The Fire' Is Musk's Behaviour To Blame For Tesla's Poor Performance?

For one Tesla investor, the cause of this week's underwhelming sales figures was clear: the chief executive, Elon Musk.

- Dan Milmo 

"Basically Tesla can't sell its cars due to Elon's behaviour," wrote Ross Gerber, the chief executive of the investment management firm Gerber Kawasaki. "Let's stop blaming the Houthi rebels or German environmental terrorists. Or a recession that never came. Or interest rates. Only one person responsible for this."

Writing on X, the social media platform owned by the Tesla boss, Gerber appeared to pin the blame on Musk's antics on the same site. Gerber then added during an appearance on the Fox Business channel that the board of the carmaker had done nothing to stop Musk's "toxic" behaviour on X that had "absolutely damaged the [Tesla] brand".

Musk responded in typical style on X, calling Gerber an "idiot" who "can't even tell he's an idiot".

Musk also flagged slowing sales at Chinese rival BYD, saying it was a "tough quarter for everyone".

Gerber was responding to a sales update by Tesla on Tuesday that surprised Wall Street and triggered a 5% decline in the company's stock, compounding a share fall of more than 30% so far this year.

Tesla said it made approximately 387,000 deliveries to customers in the first quarter of 2024, missing market expectations by about 13%.