In the cold light of Tesla's first quarter earnings report, the mythology surrounding Elon Musk lies shattered like the promises he once made to eager investors. The numbers tell a story that no amount of Twitter bluster can obscure. A 71% profit collapse year-over-year. A stock price that has hemorrhaged half its value since mid-December. Global sales in free fall, down 13% compared to the same period last year.
The company once heralded as the future of transportation now survives on financial life support, not from its revolutionary products, but from $400 million in interest income and $595 million harvested from regulatory credits – the very environmental policies Musk's political allies have sworn to dismantle. Without these government-created credits, Tesla's profitability vanishes like morning fog in the Nevada desert where taxpayers gifted Musk $1.3 billion for his Gigafactory.
What happened to the Tesla that captured America's imagination? The innovative spirit departed when F…
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