One of Elon Musk’s biggest cheerleaders is losing patience in the billionaire entrepreneur and says it’s time for some “tough love.”
On Tuesday, Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives—one of Tesla’s longest-running and most vociferous bulls—deviated from his typically optimistic analysis and penned an unusually dire note to Tesla investors. While he still maintained his “outperform” rating on the stock, Ives warned that investor patience is “wearing very thin” amid Musk’s adventure in politics and the resulting backlash it has caused to the brand.
Musk is “showing no attention to Tesla during this turbulent time” when protesters are vandalizing Tesla dealerships and showrooms and customers are selling off their vehicles, Ives wrote. A “moment of truth” lies ahead for Musk and Tesla, and how Musk handles the next few months will be “critical,” Ives said.
It was a dramatic change in tone from even just one day earlier—when Ives wrote that Tesla’s brutal 15% selloff on Monday would precede “the start of the biggest innovation and technology cycle in Tesla’s history.”
But in the 24 hours since Tesla’s stock collapsed Monday, Musk has done little to reassure investors in the electric carmaker. He went on Fox News and said he planned to stick with the Trump administration for another year, and he admitted he was running all his businesses “with great difficulty.” Musk appeared alongside Trump on the White House lawn Tuesday for a photo op in front of a Tesla Model S the president said he would purchase. Around the same time, a group of New York state senators wrote a letter to the comptroller calling for the state pension fund to divest its holdings in Tesla.
“Becoming a political object is a dangerous path,” Ives tells Fortune in an interview.
While Musk’s commitments to running multiple companies part-time, including SpaceX, the X social network (formerly Twitter), and xAI, have long frustrated investors, his foray into partisan politics has exacerbated those concerns and taken a toll on the billionaire’s brand. Ives said Musk has not been “reading the room” on social media—and with his investors. So he sent out a rare note, akin to some of the ones he issued when Musk was acquiring Twitter in 2022, in hopes that it would get Musk’s attention.
“As someone who’s covered Tesla for many, many years, it was time to communicate to Musk and the board what Tesla shareholders are telling us: Balance your time. Show that you are Tesla CEO,” Ives says, adding: “This is not the time to just play in the DOGE sandbox. He needs to step up.”
Particularly of concern to Ives is the brand deterioration, which he says has thus far been “contained” but could become more pervasive.
Tesla closed Tuesday’s regular trading session at $230.58, up 3.8%, but well below its 52-week high of $488.54.
Ives has maintained his “outperform” rating of the stock, and is forecasting that Tesla shares will be worth $550—more than double their current price—in 12 months’ time. But all of that may hinge on whether Musk continues to spend all of his time at the White House and Mar-a-Lago—or whether he again reemerges in Tesla’s factories and manufacturing facilities.
“Investors have had enough,” Ives said. “They own Tesla because of Musk, not because he runs DOGE.”
Correction: Because of an editing error, a previous version of this story misstated Tesla’s stock performance on Tuesday. Tesla’s stock finished Tuesday’s regular trading session up 3.8%.
