- Co-heading DOGE means Elon Musk is spread ever thinner.
- Tesla shareholders told BI that Musk’s position could help reduce regulatory red tape for the EV giant.
- Others said Musk proved his ability to multitask and DOGE has an expiration date.
With his new role as co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk has another plate to keep spinning — and many Tesla investors aren’t fazed by his new area of focus.
Business Insider spoke with more than a dozen Tesla shareholders and analysts about the billionaire’s new role with DOGE and how they think it could affect the company.
Many said they’re not worried that Musk is dooming more — and that the CEO has proven himself a capable multitasker.
Questions about the amount of time Musk spends at Tesla have swirled over the past year, including at the EV maker’s annual shareholder meeting, where the CEO’s pay package was approved for the second time (more on that later ). The serial entrepreneur is also involved with SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, xAI and X.
With DOGE, Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy pledged to trim the federal budget and cut wasteful spending. They have also pledged to restructure federal agencies, or in some cases eliminate them, in order to improve efficiency.
It is no small task.
Musk’s work with Trump could benefit Tesla
Some of shareholders BI spoke to said they believe Musk’s involvement in the Trump administration could help reduce the regulations Tesla must navigate, paving the way for technological advances and generally making life easier for the company.
Anthony L. Gurino, a Tesla shareholder from Long Island, said he sees Musk’s position easing “red tape around autonomous driving.” The technology is currently approved on a state-by-state basis, and Musk has said he would push to create a national approval process for fully autonomous vehicles.
Patrick O’Connell, a Tesla shareholder who started investing in 2013, said he went “all in” on the stock in 2019. He told BI he hopes Musk’s new role will ease regulations and could help with brand awareness.
Philip Engberg, a Tesla shareholder in Denmark, said that under the Biden administration, there seemed to be “a lot of political will against” Musk’s companies and the technology they were trying to develop.
Despite being the largest EV seller in the US, Tesla was not invited to President Joe Biden’s 2021 EV Summit. When asked at a news conference whether Tesla’s layoff was due to the lack of a unionized workforce, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she would let people out on “their own ends.” “.
“Now the outlook is that it’s completely gone,” Engberg said.
Faced with increased competition and slowing growth across the EV market, Tesla reported its first year-over-year decline in car sales in January. Telsa isn’t the only car company facing declining sales, however, and the EV giant recently hit a new milestone, outselling Audi globally for the first time in 2024.
Wall Street looks bullish on Tesla’s fortunes during the Trump administration. Tesla shares are up nearly 70% since the election, and some on Wall Street expect them to go higher. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas recently raised his price target from $400 to $430 and revised his bull case to $800.
Craig Irwin, a managing director and senior research analyst at Roth Capital Partners, which recently changed its buy status on Tesla from neutral to “buy,” told BI that he believes “the bunch of Tesla enthusiasts” has doubled since Trump’s re-election.
“Right now, you have tech-oriented conservative warriors who will say, ‘You know, I think Elon Musk is a cool guy — let’s go see what this Tesla car is all about,'” Irwin said. .
Not all shareholders are convinced that Musk’s relationship with Trump will have a positive impact on Tesla. John VonBokel, a shareholder who voted against Musk’s pay package for the second time, said it “can’t make sense” why Tesla’s share price has risen so much.
“Certainly Trump is not going to go in there and write code to improve FSD,” VonBokel said, referring to Tesla’s Full-Self-Driving beta software, which requires drivers to be ready to take control of the vehicle at any time. VonBokel said he sees it as a “classic situation where the market seems to think it’s worth more than I think it’s worth.”
Charlie Redmond, a Tesla shareholder since 2017, told BI that he doesn’t see the relationship with Trump lasting more than six months. He said the main benefit he sees from Musk’s involvement would be persuading Trump to keep tax cuts for electric vehicles, which Trump has talked about eliminating. Musk has also said he supports ending the loans.
Tesla shareholder and investment author Kiana Danial also said she sees the relationship as likely to fall apart at some point. If that were to happen, Danial said Musk has “always been unpredictable” and she believes any short-term decline in the stock could be regained.
“Musk has shown he can multitask brilliantly”
Some of Tesla’s shareholders told BI that they believe the second shareholder vote approving Musk’s pay package galvanized support for him as the company’s leader. Engberg told BI that he thinks retail shareholder support “is the biggest it’s ever been.”
“Musk is Tesla and Tesla is Musk,” Wedbush analyst and Tesla bull Dan Ives told BI, adding that the court battle has “turned into a soap opera” and he expects Tesla to win its appeal. at Supreme Court level it gave “overwhelming” shareholder approval of the pay package.
In addition to empowering some shareholders from Tesla’s shareholder vote and Trump’s victory following Musk’s endorsement and fundraising, most investors and analysts BI spoke with said Musk has proven his ability to take on many projects in the same time.
“Musk has shown he can multitask brilliantly,” said Irwin of Roth Capital Partners.
David Abrams, a Tesla shareholder who began investing in the company about three years ago, told BI that he thinks Musk’s involvement in politics may have some impact on his focus on the company. However, he said Musk has “proved over the years that multitasking is something he’s definitely good at.”
“He keeps throwing things under his plate and you’d think at some point the focus would go away,” Redmond said.
Abrams said that while Musk may be lean, his companies likely have enough people in place that they “can pretty much run on their own.” Other shareholders also said that at this stage of the company, Musk doesn’t need to be involved every step of the way.
“Elon is an important leader, but it’s about delegation and he’s really good at it,” Tesla shareholder Larry Winer told BI.
Tesla and Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Alexandra Merz, an attorney and staunch Tesla shareholder who uses the username “TeslaBoomerMama” on X, said the company has not relied on his constant attention to run the business “for a long time.”
“He doesn’t need to be the one opening the factory doors in the morning,” Merz told BI, adding that he doesn’t turn “every bolt on every rocket” at SpaceX either.
Others noted DOGE’s seemingly limited time frame. Merz told BI that she is “in no way concerned” that Musk will be involved with the government for decades.
“Note that the DOGE is set to expire on July 4, 2026,” Tesla shareholder Cianna Swartz told BI.
Are you a Tesla shareholder? Contact the reporter at aaltchek@businessinsider.com
