Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Elon Makes Tesla Stock Drop 7%

Transcript

Elon Makes Tesla Stock Drop 7% · Elon Musk Podcast

0:01
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
0:04
Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
0:07
the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The
0:11
Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
0:17
Elon Musk announced Saturday his intention to form the American
0:20
Party targeting specific congressional seats to control
0:23
swing votes on major legislation.
0:26
The announcement triggered a 7% drop in Tesla stock price on
0:29
Monday morning, pushing the EV maker toward its worst trading
0:33
day since June 5th of this year. Now, Tesla shareholders have
0:36
grown increasingly frustrated with Elon Musk's political
0:40
activities, doing them as distractions from the company
0:42
score business challenges. Now, Elon outlined his vision
0:47
for a third party of politics that would compete for just two
0:51
or three Senate seats and eight to 10 House districts.
0:55
The Musk believes these targeted races would give his party
0:58
enough leverage to act as the deciding vote on contentious
1:01
legislation. He claims this strategy would
1:04
ensure laws that serve the true will of the people.
1:08
The announcement marks Musk's second major political
1:11
initiative this year following his controversial involvement
1:15
with Doe. The Tesla investors have
1:18
expressed mounting concern about Musk's political ambitions
1:22
affecting the company's performance and brand image.
1:24
The automaker faces intense competition from Chinese
1:27
manufacturers like who have captured significant market
1:31
share with lower priced EVs. And Tesla reported a 14% year
1:36
over year decline in vehicle deliveries during the second
1:39
quarter, missing analyst expectations.
1:42
The company needs its CEO focused on product development
1:45
and manufacturing efficiency rather than building a political
1:49
movement. Now, if you have a podcast
1:52
platform right now, if you're on one right now that has comments,
1:55
I need you to leave a comment about this.
1:57
Do you think Elon Musk is in the right here?
2:00
Should he be buying off senators and buying off people in
2:04
politics to get his basically to get his way and it pushed
2:10
through his agenda? Should we keep money out of
2:12
politics? Should politics be pure?
2:15
It's up to you to decide. Let's build this community
2:17
together now. I asked about a week ago for
2:22
some help and I really meant it and I really do appreciate
2:26
everybody who helped out when I asked for it because right now
2:31
as it is, this podcast needs as much help as possible to
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continue doing what we do every single day.
2:38
I produce a podcast every single day about Elon Musk and I've
2:43
been doing it for the last four years, over 1000 episodes.
2:47
And I'm dedicated to this and I will continue to be dedicated to
2:51
this. But I absolutely need your help.
2:53
I'm going to like, I don't do this ever, really.
2:56
I did it once before and that was last week.
2:57
But I absolutely need your help. We're in dire straits here with
3:01
the show might not continue on. And if you could help us out,
3:07
the easy freeway to do that is to like this podcast in a way by
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subscribing or following the show, but also, you know, we
3:18
need money to keep the lights on.
3:20
So if you can, Venmo, Wil Dash, WALDON, any amount would be
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helpful. I greatly appreciated everybody
3:30
that did it last week. That was the best thing.
3:35
Opening up my app in the afternoon after this episode
3:38
dropped and seeing all of your support really did help me
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continue doing these shows. And you know, it's not free to
3:47
do this. It takes a lot of effort, takes
3:49
a lot of time. So in the equipment is
3:52
expensive, etcetera. So thank you so much for all of
3:55
your support. But let's get back to Elon Musk
3:59
and his America Party, and wow, it's it's wild that the Tesla
4:05
stock dropped because of it. Now Dan Ives, who is the global
4:09
head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, captured
4:12
investor sentiment on a Sunday research note.
4:15
I've stated that Musk diving deeper into politics and now
4:18
trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the
4:22
opposite direction that Tesla investors and shareholders want
4:26
him to take during this crucial period.
4:28
For Tesla, it's a broader sense of exhaustion.
4:31
For many Tesla investors, the Musk keeps heading down the
4:35
political track. The Musk relationship with
4:38
President Donald Trump has deteriorated significantly since
4:42
their initial collaboration. The Tesla CEO worked closely
4:46
with Trump through DOGE in early 2025 before leaving in May.
4:51
The partnership soured over disagreements about federal
4:54
spending bills, with Musk arguing that Trump's proposals
4:57
would dramatically increase America's debt burden.
5:00
Now, he's particularly criticized cuts tax credits for
5:04
solar energy, wind power and EVs.
5:07
And President Trump responded in kind to Musk's announcement on
5:10
Sunday by calling the new political party ridiculous.
5:14
Trump accused the test the CEO, of going completely off the
5:17
rails and suggests this the move represented a personal vendetta
5:21
rather than genuine political conviction.
5:23
Now, the president's harsh reaction indicates the depth of
5:27
their falling out after months of public disputes over energy
5:32
policy and government spending. White House sources suggest
5:35
Trump views Musk's party as a direct challenge to his
5:38
administration's agenda. Now, Elon Musk said he could be
5:42
around and his party would be around for centuries.
5:47
Donald Trump will only be around for about 3 more years because
5:53
Elon Musk has billions of dollars to put behind this.
5:56
If that's all he does is create a fund for this party.
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It will be around until long after we're all dead and after
6:03
our kids are gone and their kids are gone and their kids are
6:06
gone. And Elon Musk's legacy could
6:09
live on through this America party.
6:12
The timing of this political announcement from Elon Musk
6:16
creates additional pressure for Tesla during a critical period.
6:20
Chinese competitors BYD Neo have expanded rapidly in
6:23
international markets, which Elon Musk and Tesla are trying
6:26
to take over. The companies benefit from lower
6:29
manufacturing costs and government subsidies that allow
6:31
aggressive pricing strategies. They're pushing Tesla out, and
6:35
Tesla must defeat them in every market.
6:39
They must defend its market position while simultaneously
6:41
investing billions in new battery tech and autonomous
6:44
driving and capabilities. No, we have to worry about
6:48
political activities, and it'll consume the time and attention
6:51
of Musk. That's the attention that he
6:54
needs to dedicate to Tesla's operational challenges.
6:57
The company faces production bottlenecks at its newer
6:59
facilities in Texas and Germany. Supply line disruptions continue
7:04
to affect battery cell availability and semiconductor
7:07
procurement. Tesla's engineering teams
7:09
require executive leadership to make crucial decisions about
7:13
next generation vehicle platforms and manufacturing
7:16
processes. And if Elon Musk is out there
7:18
doing other things politically, he can't be with the Tesla
7:24
employees. Think about it, for a while when
7:27
he was at DOGE, there were some Tesla employees that just said
7:31
we want Elon back. You know, we're here because we
7:35
believe in Elon, we believe in Tesla, but more so, we believe
7:39
in Elon Musk and his vision for the future of Tesla.
7:43
We love the technology ourselves.
7:45
We build the technology every day.
7:47
We want to continue working here, but without Elon.
7:51
Elon's the spark that keeps this place going, and that's how they
7:55
feel about this, too. The formation of this new
7:58
political party requires substantial financial resources.
8:01
They get organizational infrastructure.
8:04
And if Musk would need to recruit new candidates for this,
8:07
it's going to take the time away from Tesla and his other
8:09
companies like SpaceX, Boring Company, Neuron, like it's going
8:13
to take all the time away from them just so he can dip his toe
8:16
into politics again. Political consultants estimate
8:20
that competitive congressional races typically require millions
8:23
of dollars in campaign spending. Could he hire people to do these
8:26
jobs for him? Of course.
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But it's going to take him time in order to hire these people.
8:32
His involvement in this would likely trigger scrutiny from
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federal election regulators, of course, because he's their
8:38
opposition. Now, there's two parties, which
8:42
pretty much they all talk to each other.
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They're all buddy, buddy. If you've ever seen any videos,
8:46
the left and the right, Donald Trump hangs out with Barack
8:51
Obama, Bill Clinton, you know, Hillary Clinton too.
8:58
You'd see them all together. It's kind of funny how they
9:01
pretend that there's two sides, but they're all the same thing
9:05
almost. I'm an American.
9:07
I've been an American my whole life.
9:08
I was born here and it's pretty blatantly obvious.
9:17
Blatantly obvious if you look at it from up on high.
9:21
These people are in it together and it's all a dog and pony
9:24
show, man. And I'm just saying this as a
9:26
person who looks at things from a different perspective, as
9:31
somebody who I don't affiliate myself with the party, affiliate
9:36
myself with people who are good people.
9:39
And everybody that's a politician that I've seen
9:43
recently, they just, they're in it for themselves, They're in it
9:47
for their team. And if their team wins, that's
9:50
great, right? So Elon has his own team now,
9:53
his third party and the formation of this new party,
9:57
it's going to take a lot of resources.
9:59
Tesla shareholder holders don't want to lose Elon.
10:03
They remember the negative impact of Musk's previous
10:06
political ventures on the company's brand of the sales.
10:09
His association with Doge alienated customers.
10:12
They started burning down his facilities and his Tesla
10:18
showrooms because they didn't want him to be ripping apart the
10:23
government and the subsidies for people that need it.
10:29
There were protests everywhere. Millions of people marched
10:33
against Elon Musk just months ago to get him out of the White
10:40
House and get him away from Trump.
10:43
And now is this just smoke and mirrors by Elon?
10:45
Think about it for a minute. Elon and Trump, they're both
10:51
egotistical. You have to know that.
10:55
If you don't know that, if you don't think Elon is egotistical,
10:58
you don't think he has sociopathic means.
11:03
I mean, he's said himself that empathy is a shortcoming.
11:08
He doesn't hire people with empathy.
11:10
He doesn't want people with empathy next to him.
11:14
He doesn't want people to use their feelings.
11:15
He wants them to just crank out work.
11:18
So him himself, himself, does he have some empathy?
11:21
He might, but he's a savage in business.
11:28
Absolute savage. Shareholders don't want him to
11:34
go away. Shareholders don't want him to
11:37
use the same time that he used for DOGE for this new party.
11:42
They want their money. If you're a shareholder in
11:46
Tesla, you want to cash out. You don't want anything to get
11:49
in your way of getting that big paycheck because 1, you aren't
11:53
building Teslas, you aren't building the company.
11:58
You put your money into it and you gambled on Elon.
12:02
You put $100,000 on Elon years ago, maybe you have $1,000,000
12:08
now. Maybe you want that $1,000,000
12:09
to go to 4,000,005 million, 6,000,007 million because fully
12:15
autonomous car service, fully autonomous Uber style cyber
12:21
cabs. Who wouldn't want to do that?
12:24
That's a continuous stream of money 24/7.
12:28
That's you just making bank all the time.
12:32
Uber, think about the money that Uber makes.
12:35
Add that to the Tesla portfolio and also add in the way MO
12:40
money, add in the Lyft money all around the world and then you
12:46
don't pay the drivers either. So you get a ride and you don't
12:49
pay the drivers. You just have a car.
12:51
Think about all that money. And then also the robotics, not
12:54
just the Tesla robot, but the robotics that Tesla could
12:56
eventually build in the AI that they can license self driving
13:01
technology, proprietary self self driving technology that
13:05
they could license to other competitors.
13:08
But if you have some money into Tesla, you want that money to
13:11
continue to grow over your lifetime or over next few years
13:15
or so. And if Elon is out doing things
13:18
in politics, you don't think he's paying attention to Tesla,
13:21
do you? Can he do everything?
13:24
I don't know. SpaceX is having a tough time.
13:27
SpaceX is blowing up rockets left and right down to Starbase.
13:31
3 or 4 Starships have blown up mid air because there weren't
13:40
protocols in place for them to fix the issues how they thought
13:44
they fixed the issues. Of course it's a listen, it's a
13:47
it's a prototype. We all know it's a prototype.
13:50
Starship is a prototype. Things like this will happen but
13:53
not the same thing repeatedly. And that's why there's an
13:57
investigation on Starship right now and why it's exploding not
14:03
just from Elon and SpaceX, but also from the government.
14:13
Yes, I think the shareholders are correct in assuming that
14:18
Elon Musk will be taking attention away from his Tesla
14:22
duties. But on Monday, the stock price
14:24
declined and erased billions in market value and pushed Tesla
14:28
closer to Technical Support levels that traders monitor now.
14:33
The shares fell as much as 7.3% in early trading before
14:38
recovering a little bit midday. Still down by the end of the
14:42
day. Now.
14:45
Elon stated goal of creating a kingmaker party in Congress
14:50
faces obstacles to third parties historically struggle in
14:54
America's two party system due to ballot access requirements,
14:59
fundraising disadvantages which he doesn't have and strategic
15:03
voting patterns. But we have AI, we have Grok, we
15:07
have XAI to take care of that right.
15:09
Political scientists point to a failure of previous billionaire
15:12
funded third party efforts. Ross Perot, remember that guy he
15:16
was in the Reform Party and also remember Michael Bloomberg had
15:21
various independent initiatives. Now, the America Party, Elon's
15:25
America Party, we need to overcome everything that they
15:29
couldn't do. Ross Perot had ungodly amounts
15:32
of money. Michael Bloomberg, same thing.
15:36
Can you do it? I mean, if anybody could, it
15:39
probably be probably be Elon. He might be able to crack the
15:42
code. But we will see if it does
15:47
really hurt Tesla, could the board kick him off?
15:51
Just I don't know if it's up in the air right now.
15:55
And that's another variable to Tesla's complex investment
15:58
thesis. We got a factor in political
16:02
risk alongside traditional metrics like vehicle deliveries,
16:05
gross margins and technology development.
16:08
And we don't want to away from the traditional metrics.
16:16
You know, people may start reducing Tesla holdings to avoid
16:20
exposure or unpredictable political developments.
16:23
It's not safe if Elon's try to take on big government, you
16:28
know, if he's trying to take on the Republican Party, somebody
16:32
who can be nasty, Donald Trump can be nasty.
16:36
Taking on the Democratic Party, they could be nasty, too.
16:40
And if you're going to fight against them, you're going to
16:41
take their power and their money away.
16:43
Oh, they will fight you, you know.
16:46
The company's board of directors faces pressure to address
16:50
shareholder concerns now about Elon Musk's focus and corporate
16:55
governance of Tesla. But does he want to fight both
17:00
parties? I mean, he's in it to win it,
17:02
right? We're going to see.
17:06
But with Elon launching this America party and Tesla
17:10
struggling a little bit with competitive pressures raises
17:14
fundamental questions about his responsibility in Tesla.
17:18
The 7% stock decline reflects investor skepticism.
17:23
People just don't really want it, you know, they just don't
17:27
want his political stuff. They just want their money to
17:30
make money for them. That's why they invested.
17:32
They believe in Tesla, they believe in the vision, they
17:34
believe in Elon, but they didn't sign up for this.
17:37
And that's why some people either sold their stock or just
17:41
didn't invest as much this time around.
17:44
They need focus right now. They need focused execution to
17:48
maintain the position as the top EV company in the United States.
17:55
Hyundai's coming for them. BYD, you know, in other
18:00
countries. So Elon going to do his
18:04
political party and maybe it's going to hurt Tesla little bit.
18:07
Tesla's very, very, very well priced right now.
18:12
Let's just say that. I'm going to say it's
18:13
overpriced, but the only place it could go is up from here.
18:19
It's a technology company. It's not a car company.
18:21
It's an AI company. It's not a car company.
18:24
It's a robot company. It's not a car company anymore.
18:28
Elon Musk. But remember, I want to, I want
18:30
you to remember this too. Elon Musk, when it was favorable
18:34
for him to be on the side of progressive Democrats.
18:39
He was a progressive Democrat. And this is for business.
18:43
He did this for business. He was part of the Green
18:47
Initiative. That's why people bought into
18:49
Tesla. Great marketing.
18:52
I thought it was cool. I don't want to go to the gas
18:55
pump anymore. I want a self-sustaining vehicle
18:58
that I could charge at my house. Why would I want to pay all
19:01
these oil companies all this money when I could just plug my
19:04
car in at night, let it trickle charge overnight?
19:07
That sounds like a great idea. And then when Trump got into
19:12
office, like before that, he could see the the winds of
19:15
change shifting. So his mindset shifted to the
19:18
Republican Party. He was all in hundreds of
19:22
millions of dollars, almost $400 million into the Trump campaign,
19:26
amongst other campaigns full in. And now because that's not
19:35
favorable anymore, mainly because people started burning
19:39
down Tesla showrooms, people worth having, millions of
19:43
people, millions of people were marching against him.
19:48
He saw the shift again and he's moving to his own political
19:53
party. So he's not part of the
19:55
Republican Party or part of the Democratic Party.
19:59
He's going to do his own thing. I want you to take a step back.
20:03
Don't think about your own party.
20:04
If you're Republican, you can always be a Republican.
20:07
If you're a Democrat, you can always be a Democrat.
20:11
But step back, Look at what he did.
20:13
Look at his timeline. Just think to yourself, why is
20:18
he doing this party? Is he doing it so he can get
20:21
some power back, maybe some power back so he can pass the
20:26
legislation that he needs, so he can get subsidies for Tesla, so
20:29
he can continue building Tesla into the most influential
20:34
company of all time, and also those subsidies for SpaceX?
20:42
Just take a step back. We're going to have another
20:45
episode about all that in the coming days.
20:49
So again, thank you so much for listening.
20:52
I appreciate you 100%. If you want to support the show,
20:58
please make a donation on Venmo at Wil Dash WALDON.
21:09
Any amount helps, whether it's a dollar, five dollars, $10, leave
21:14
a little note. I'll let you know, you know,
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I'll let you know how it's going.
21:18
I'll write back to you. If you have a, a comment, let me
21:23
know. That's a good way to get a hold
21:24
of me directly. And then I'll read your comment.
21:27
I'll read about, you know, what you, what you said on the air,
21:32
if you have anything to say and just let me know that you want
21:34
me to read it on the air. And I will gladly do that for
21:38
you. As long as it's within reason,
21:39
of course. And let's just let's just do one
21:44
from last time. Let's just say from JW, you know
21:50
who you are. JW Thanks for the show.
21:55
I'll try to make this regular, make this a regular donation.
21:58
JW Thank you so much. And then we have B.
22:04
I'm just using letters. So BR thanks, Will, for
22:09
everything you do. I appreciate all the time you
22:13
put into the show. Love it, keep it going.
22:19
And then they donated $35. I was, I'm so touched by this.
22:25
That's only two of them, though. There were more.
22:27
And I can talk about those in another episode.
22:31
So if you want to, if you want your message read, if you have a
22:34
question, Venmo at Will Dash Walden, that's me.
22:38
Will Walden. I'm your host and I'll let you
22:42
know let you know how it goes and I'll read your note on the
22:46
air. We'll start the shows with those
22:48
in the future. OK, That's that's my promise to
22:50
you. We'll start that coming up in
22:52
the next few days. Questions to me, put them out
22:58
first. Could be about Elon, could be
23:00
about Tesla, could be about SpaceX.
23:01
Just let me know. All right, everybody, thank you
23:04
so much. Hey, thank you so much for
23:07
listening today. I really do appreciate your
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support. If you could take a second and
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hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
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please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
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tomorrow.