Tesla Investors Wanted 1 Major Thing From Elon Musk, and They Just Got It
One comment from Tesla CEO Elon Musk during the company's earnings call may help investors look past the company's horrendous first-quarter results.
Investors expected disappointing results when Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported earnings Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, that's pretty much what they got. Revenue and earnings plummeted as the company faced a number of challenges, including high interest rates, a pause in production during part of the quarter, and macroeconomic uncertainty. But, on the bright side, investors also got the one thing many of them probably wanted the most: A promise from CEO Elon Musk that his time spent on President Donald Trump's DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) initiative will soon drop off significantly.
While many of the headwinds Tesla has been facing recently have been due to macro factors, there's also a common viewpoint that some of the company's recent challenges are self-inflicted by a distracted CEO. Earlier this year, Musk stepped into a lead role in President Trump's DOGE initiative, and it's been taking time away from the electric-car maker. So Tesla investors warmly welcome news that the CEO has plans to pull back on this effort.
"I think starting probably in [...] May, my time allocation at DOGE will drop significantly," Musk said during Tesla's first-quarter earnings call this week. He went on to say that he will be allocating "far more" of his time to Tesla.