Tesla investors are clearly worried that CEO Elon Musk's fiery new pledge to build a third US political party could inflict even more damage on the embattled company.
The EV maker has been put through the wringer by Musk's antics, from cratering sales worldwide to an enormous drop in year-over-year revenues.
The company's finances are in free fall. And now that president Donald Trump's so-called "big, beautiful bill" has passed through Congress, Tesla's crisis could soon take a major turn for the worse, the Financial Times reports.
To insiders, it seems that Musk has been struggling to understand what's happening around him, nevermind the impacts of his own erratic actions — and his latest moment of lucidity is too little, too late.
"Elon has finally woken up to this, but talk about a day late and a dollar short," one former Tesla executive told the FT.
Trump's bill is set to obliterate clean air credits, which have historically represented billions of dollars worth of profits to Tesla, a sizable chunk of its overall revenues.
The Trump administration is also planning to blow up a $7,500 federal tax credit for eligible EV purchases and leases, as well as wind and solar energy tax credits. Tesla has greatly benefited from both.
Finally, the president's unpredictable tariff war has thrown Tesla's supply chain with China into chaos.
In short, Trump's second term has been nothing short of a disaster for the EV maker's bottom line, a bizarre reality considering its CEO has spent hundreds of millions getting him elected.
But Trump's bill proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back, ending their budding bromance abruptly in dramatic fashion.
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