Musk Hit With Double Whammy as Tesla Reports BRUTAL Earnings and CEO Says Trump Not Swayed by His Pleas to Lower Tariffs
The influence of Tesla CEO and White House adviser Elon Musk in President Donald Trump’s circle is “waning,” CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reported on Tuesday, shortly after Tesla printed some atrocious figures in its Q1 earnings report.
The electric carmaker’s net income plummeted 71% and fell woefully short of analysts’ earnings expectations of 41 cents per share by posting just 27 cents per share. On the earnings call, Musk reiterated that he will likely step down from his position as the head of the “Department of Government Efficiency” sometime in May. He said he expects to work on government business one to two days per week for as long as Trump wants.
Musk’s endorsement of Trump last year and his gutting of numerous federal agencies have inflicted major damage on Tesla’s image and its stock price, which has shed more than 40% since Trump’s inauguration. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs have started to impact Tesla. It was reported last week that the company would stop importing parts from China for its American-made cars because the president’s tariffs have made them prohibitively expensive.
“Tariffs are still tough on a company where margins are still low,” Musk said on the call. “I just wanna emphasize that the tariff decision is entirely up to the president of the United States. I will weigh in with my advice with the president, which he will listen to my advice. But then it’s up to him, of course, to make his decision… So, you know, I’ll continue to advocate for lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs, but that’s all I can do.”
Zeleny appeared on Tuesday’s OutFront, where he noted despite Musk’s very real and influential slash-and-burn approach to the bureaucracy, the billionaire hasn’t been able to get Trump to ease up on tariffs, a reality that Musk repeated during the earnings call.
“By saying he will step aside, this is just one more indication that we’ve really been able to see almost week by week by week, his influence is waning,” Zeleny said. “His presence here at the White House is waning. At the very beginning, in the first of several weeks, Elon Musk was in the Oval Office so many times, as we saw. He was in the cabinet room. He was omnipresent. He was everywhere. We’ve not seen him nearly as much. That does not mean he’s not working behind the scenes, but it’s clear his ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ has been one of the challenging points of this administration.”
Watch above via CNN.
