I actually think the stock price would go up. His detour to fascism and megalomania has chased off tons of liberal environmentalists like myself that are the target audience for electric cars. I cancelled what would have been our replacement Tesla when he was implying on Twitter there can be good reasons for sneaking into the speaker of the house’s house and hitting her husband in the head with a hammer.
The issue is that if you look at Tesla as a normal car company (without an iconoclast CEO/personality), then you need to do normal P/E math, which is going to be sub-100 for sure.
Right now it’s easily double to triple that, even with Musks behavior.
Normal P/E math for a car company would put it in more like the 10-20 region - we’re not talking it being double to triple a sensible valuation but seriously something like 15 times…
I think firing Musk would do wonders for Tesla as going concern but would be a disaster for the stock price.
I suspect a significant proportion of Tesla's stock price comes from people who are using it as a proxy for his other companies that the public can't invest in, primarily xAI (as all AI companies are in a horrific bubble right now) and SpaceX.
It may do this or that on the announcement, but if growth stops (arguably already has) and there is no hype for years, it's likely going to grind down to a normal valuation with time.
The passive investing / market cap weighted ETF complex tends to help big valuations stay big, but a company like Tesla still needs that sharp shot in the arm followed by frenzied buying occasionally in order to stay aloft (be it by traders, retail participants, shorts covering, etc).
I suppose they could replace Musk with another hype salesman, but the "hate" that Tesla gets is a big part of these upside shock cycles for the stock, because the ticker is a siren call for short sellers, who are ultimately guaranteed future buyers.
The reality distortion field is at ATH. Tesla stock is nearing its high, which it had when it was growing quickly and very profitable. Now they are shrinking sales and margins and the stock is soaring again
