check out the shares of Tesla this morning off a little bit uh the stock on the one hand is up more than 50% in the last year sort of see an indication of that we don't go all the way back but has declined uh nearly 50% from its all-time high reach back just in December joining us now with more on Elon Musk and the Tesla brand Tim Higgins Wall Street Journal reporter uh and a CNBC contributor uh Tim good morning good morning my mind races uh over the weekend I did happen to drive by a
Tesla dealership you know what I was on my way to what Taco Bell but I did dve and there were a lot of people Tim uh with signs not a lot I'd say 10 or 12 uh and one of them said no dogs allowed which I thought was kind of funny no do GES oh instead of dogs so I get it and um what Mark Kelly is getting rid of his is and there's Molotov Cocktails so I get it why do you think Elon Musk seems to be less than concerned about the effect on his
brand than you would think yeah you would think he'd be freaking out right but uh you know traditionally if you look kind of that long Arc of time with Elon Musk uh marketing is a thing but he tends to argue that the product will overcome that the product will sell itself that if it's such a great product people will just buy it that it'll spread you don't have to have television advertising because word of mouth will will help it and it seems to be a bet that that Tesla is at least on the cusp if
not in the near term over the long term will have technology that will just bring people to it right he is making the bet that autonomous vehicles that robots will be the future uh that's a huge bet that's a bet that I think investors were excited about a couple years ago when he was clearly running the company on a more engaged basis now the question is uh you know how much involvement is he having and also uh how willing are they allow willing to go with this kind of bet that could be much more important
I think Tim that they need uh maybe they need more of his time maybe they don't I don't know but the brand thing I it's exactly the conclusion that I uh that I came to if I was going to buy I would still if I was going to buy an EV I'd still buy a Tesla that's all I see driving around every once in a while I might see a what are those other ones Polaris or I very rarely see that many other EVS other than Tesla and what you said think about what he's staking
Tesla's future on in terms of Automation and Robo taxis and all those if those come through uh none of this is is is really going to to matter and you remember a couple years ago when he was uh he had bought Tesla and the advertisers were leaving and he was asked what about about that and he said they can go f themselves or I mean just said it in front of like a bunch of people and and then I think he said if you didn't hear me I think he said it again and he didn't
care then either yeah absolutely it was when he bought Twitter it was go f yourself uh to those advertisers who didn't want to be there and he seems to be doing the same play here but I think the stakes are a little bit different the car business is a cash eating machine yes he's got a bunch of cash but that's cash to get the company to the Future heading into to potential recession concerns that's not a good place when you're a car company um and then the other thing is that while he's making the bad
on robots the near term it's not clear that there's a huge product lineup uh that maybe perhaps a decanted Vehicles here in the near term uh is that really going to move the needle that's what uh some investors are are very much worried about but to your point yeah it's a long-term play in his mind but the market is not that long term um well I was going to follow up with that I guess at some point uh uh Tim you would you would think maybe uh that you're going to have him go back to
the company and and and maybe do you think he gets tired of of this how long do you think well you know it's interesting you look at the Mandate for Doge it's into the next summer of 2026 for him he seemed to suggest that he's going to be there for the next year in his mind at least what he's talked about it is a an assignment it's not the Le rest of his life uh and he seems to be making the kind of the the argument that did the world or the US needs him now
one of the interesting things about Tesla though as a Brand Story one of its successes is that it got beyond the idea of an electric car company right if you look at third party consumer data from like the likes of strategic Vision those people that PLL or take surveys of people who buy their car they were talk in the past about why they were buying it was because of its performance because of its looks not because necessarily it was green car and that's really where electric car makers want to get they want to get past
the idea of being a green car now if it's seen as being political that's that's some baggage that he's going to be dealing with when he goes back to the day-to-day at Tesla that that was a a point they made I mean in this Administration any of those EV mandates that you were counting on um you know to uh you know to hasten the transition those may or may not uh hold up I I mean the whole climate change um you know that narrative that Orthodoxy uh is challenged even by the new secretary of energy
to that the one thing I would say Tim I have criticized so many times um when when companies get too woke and it's and I always bring up Michael Jackson or Jackson Michael Jordan uh you know Republicans by sneakers too he would never engage in that um I and now it's on now it's sort of the otherwise Democrats by Teslas boy do they ever and so that is a strategic if all he cared about was maximizing sales that would be a strategic mistake right traditionally Republicans haven't bought a lot of electric cars now perhaps they
will buy uh Teslas but Democrats seem to be shying away from it it's almost like a budlight moment uh and we saw what happened there
