… I mean, their profit did fall sharply last year. What do you want, the NYT to award points for effort?

What part is specifically clickbait here? The title (and article) says the profit dropped, not that the stock has dropped. Am I missing something?

Legacy media doesn't have to disparage Tesla. Elon Musk is doing that all on his own.

His fascist salutes have alienated a lot of potential buyers: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elo...

Teslas are now being called "swasticars". That's brand damage that's going to take a while to fix. And maybe it can't be fixed while Musk remains at Tesla.

The stock went up because the market was expecting a bigger drop in profit (and that was built into the price), so in that regard Tesla beat expectations.