Sorry, Elon. Tesla Is Over, And So Are You. Cope Harder.
About that Tesla earnings call!
Yesterday came the answer to a burning question: Just how bad would Tesla’s first-quarter profits be, now that Elon Musk has completely run his EV company into the ground while he bounces around the US government murdering things with chainsaws, and now that the average person on the street hates Teslas and thinks they’re Swasticars? How bad?
Real, real fuckin’ bad. Like, so bad that if there weren’t certain asterisks in the reporting of the numbers, certain mitigating factors, Tesla wouldn’t have made any money.
To start with, profits are down 71 percent. Here are some numbers:
Tesla said it had earned $409 million, down from $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2024. The company previously reported net profit of $1.1 billion last year, but revised the figure to reflect changes in the way cryptocurrency assets are valued.
Tesla sales have been slumping because of intense competition from Chinese carmakers like BYD, a lack of new models and Mr. Musk’s support of far-right causes, which has turned off some liberals and centrists from buying Tesla vehicles.
Yeah, that’s one way to say it. Another way to say it is in the new CNBC poll that shows that only 27 percent of Americans have a positive view of Tesla, and that “Where Tesla is strongest is among the people least likely to buy an EV,” says Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, the Republican pollster who did that poll.
And this, which shows what a genius business decision it was for Elon to effectively quit working so he and his team of virgin incels could force themselves on the government:
Young people aged 18-34 are +19 on EVs but -23 on Tesla. The gap is most stark among Democrats, who are +20 on EV’s but -74 on Tesla.
Further complicating the issue: Republicans are strongly positive on Tesla, but net negative on EVs.
That’s right, Tesla is most popular among people who would never ever buy an EV.
But wait, it’s even worse than that, and we’ve only just begun to kick Elon while he’s down!
Remember how Tesla’s first quarter earnings were 409 million tiny measly American dollars? The New York Times explains that Tesla earned “$400 million in interest on cash and investments and $595 million from selling credits to other carmakers that failed to meet emissions regulations.” Therefore, if it didn’t have those things to fall back on, if it just had to rely on selling its shitty cars, Tesla would have lost millions and millions of dollars in the first quarter.
Also? Everybody hates the stupid Cybertruck, the one that looks like Elon’s mom was like “Hello, my ugly son, I would like thee to draw Mommy a picture of the second-most expensive wastebasket at Target!” and Elon was like “NAWRRRRRRRR mommy! I want to draw the car Blade Runner would drive!” (You know, in his stupid white South African clown German supervillain accent.) But he ended up drawing the wastebasket anyway, because Mommy said. Sales of that eyesore are down 50 percent.
(Elon thinks the main character of Blade Runner is named “Blade Runner.”)
On yesterday’s Tesla’s earnings call, Elon was full of stupid delusions and grandiose fantasies, all seemingly designed to keep him from looking in the mirror and understanding what a loser he is and how much everybody hates him.
He seemed to blame part of it on Trump’s tariffs, seemingly resigned to them, saying he’s advised Trump differently, but Trump is going a different direction. He said he’ll keep trying to advocate for lower tariffs, but that’s all he can do.
He said the REAL future of Tesla was self-driving “Cybercabs.” Will those catch on fire and lock people inside too? Also, he said they’re coming out “within months.” Is that true, or is it just another in the long line of things Elon says he’s going to do, but doesn’t? Also Optimus Robots. That’s the ticket. You betcha.
But his saddest, funniest delusions came when he started blaming “paid” protesters for all his woes. Or, alternately, he said they’re all just people who love all the fraud he and DOGE are definitely eliminating. (Elon has found zero fraud. He has found things he and his team of unfuckable dorks don’t understand, and he has found things he and his Nazi president want to murder because they in their incredible ineptitude and bigotry think they are “woke” or “DEI.”)
Rachel Maddow pulled together some clips of Elon whining:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
In that TikTok clip, you can hear him say — in his stupid voice and stupid accent — that the protests are “very organized, they are paid for.” He said, “They’re obviously not going to say, admit that the reason they are protesting is because they are receiving fraudulent money, or that they are the recipients of wasteful largesse, but they are going to come up with some other reason.”
“But that is the real reason for the protests. The actual reason is that those receiving the waste and fraud wish to continue receiving it. That is the real thing that is going on here. Obviously.”
Obviously.
You guys, he sounds upset. Or as Maddow said, with a huge grin on her face, “Are you mad?”
Do y’all think all those thousands of people coming out every week making signs calling him a Nazi and his ugly cars Swasticars, in thousands of towns, people young and old, people who have never protested before, you think they’re bothering Elon?
And do you realize what level of cope you have to be at to desperately try to convince yourself and your investors (who certainly aren’t buying it) that all those people are being paid? Or that they’re just addicted to all the fraud and waste you’re actually not finding?
It would save Elon a lot of time if he just stood in front of his bathroom mirror and explained to his reflection that people hate him because he’s not worthy of love.
Hey, then maybe he’d have more time to run Tesla! Not that it would help.
Elon said on the call that he’s probably going to spend a lot more time running Tesla and only a day or two a week in DC for the rest of Trump’s presidency, starting in May. He was already upset and wanting to take his ugly toys and go back to his ugly life, according to a report this weekend in the Washington Post that cited the “slew of nasty and unethical attacks from the political left” that are really getting under his skin.
Of course, even if he fucked off to hell entirely, the American people would chase him there and give him wedgies and keep making fun of him there, because that’s what he deserves.
Does he not understand that people will still make fun of his stupid face and voice and bad personality and lack of sexual magnetism in the private sector? Does he think there’s hope for his image? Does he think anyone will ever think his cars aren’t Nazi cars ever again? And does he think the people who actually love the idea of driving Nazi cars will ever figure out how to drive a Tesla? Does he think they’re still allowed to have drivers licenses? Does he understand that most of them live in the nursing home and fall asleep during “Wheel of Fortune” every night?
When Donald Trump sat his big ass in the driver’s seat of a Tesla on the White House lawn, he exclaimed, “Everything’s computer!” He sounded like the oldest man in the world — which he is — calling his great grandson asking for help using the coffeepot.
That, Elon. That is who still has a positive view of Tesla. People who would never drive them.
And what will be the legacy of Elon’s time in Washington, assuming he actually fucks off, even if only partially? Elections nerd Adam Carlson summed it up on Twitter:
Tesla is over, you fucking loser. And so is Elon Musk. He just doesn’t know it yet.
And any investor who puts their trust in him is a damned fool.
OPEN THREAD!
[New York Times / CNBC]
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“Where Tesla is strongest is among the people least likely to buy an EV”
I just loves me some irony
- Killing millions of children by destroying USAID.
Which is why, during one of his whiny, 'Why all mean to me? What I do?' screeds weeks ago, he says, specifically, "I've never DIRECTLY harmed anyone."
He fucking knows.
He doesn't care, and, to the extent that he does, it's only because none of these fucking billionaires can deal with criticism, much less open hatred.
But at least Tesla's dead. There's no way that company recovers.