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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

With hindsight it's interesting to consider what a vulnerable position Musk is in.

Tesla stock has been massively over-valued for years - it's been clear that a company selling less cars than most other name-brand auto manufacturers shouldn't be one of the top ten most valuable companies in the world, but had a valuation that was propped up by Musk's massive fame and visibility.

(Of course shorting Tesla was always a risk, because "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent".)

As Musk, the worst thing you can do in that position is to wildly pivot into right wing politics and piss off a huge chunk of the world's population who can both afford your cars and care about climate change.

Right wing fans who can afford $100,000+ for a Cybertruck aren't going to make up that gap.

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Tesla is not just cars. Their large scale solar power storage business is growing, they manufacture batteries, they have the largest charging infrastructure for end users, massive super computing to crunch fsd data, a lithium refinery in Texas starting up this year, and their humanoid robotics division.

Perhaps their stock was overpriced, perhaps not. Long term, there’s tremendous upside and right now it’s arguably a buying opportunity. Musk’s involvement with DoGE will end in a matter of months or maybe a year, and the people keying cars and engaging in political theatrics outside Tesla dealerships will soon move on to the next cause.

Musk is inextricably tied to MAGA and global rightwing populism at this point, DOGE or no DOGE. If and when the US starts invading allies and sending Democrats to El Salvador, the brand will become unsalvageable barring Musk’s complete eviction from the company — and maybe not even then.

If such bizarre actions were to actually take place, Tesla’s brand will be the least of our problems.

It’s like saying that if Musk unleashes a billion Optimus robots to take control of the world, people will be mad and stop buying Teslas.

Part of the reason that Tesla has been so valuable, is that is was/is seen as an investment in Elon Musk as a person, not specifically just Tesla. SpaceX is a private company, so people can't invest in that. But Tesla's stock price has in the past seen spikes and dips associated with successes and failures by SpaceX.

Right now, Musk has a decent amount of power over the domestic functions of the US Government. Regardless of your opinions about that fact, it's an objective truth that that is an economically valuable position for a person to be in. And so, Tesla stock remains high, independent of the performance of Tesla the automaker, and frankly independent of many people's opinions of what Musk is doing.

Were Musk to get booted from the current administration, and Tesla sales to increase 30%, I think the net effect of that would be a drop in Tesla stock.

Like many unicorns. During the Dot Com era, when Oracle chief Larry Ellison was briefly thought to be lost at sea on his sailing yacht, Oracle’s stock tanked, then recovered after he was found safe.

> large scale solar power storage business is growing, they manufacture batteries, they have the largest charging infrastructure for end users

Tesla’s infrastructure-sales prospects outside America have basically been hobbled for years to come. I’d argue similarly for our most-populous states.

Like, on what planet is a Canadian or California politician surviving greenlighting a Tesla project? For that matter, how many places currently leasing space to Tesla for charging infrastructure want a permanent protest magnet on their property?

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