Amid plunging profits and investor fury, Elon Musk on Tuesday announced that he will soon be spending less time wrecking the federal government to focus on Tesla.
This can be interpreted in several ways: The billionaire tech CEO is slowly realizing that a lockstep partnership with Donald Trump may not have been the safest bet; that his status as the world's richest man may be somewhat imperiled; or maybe Musk is simply trying to placate shareholders.
But any hope that Musk had finally come to terms with his toxic behavior was instantly lost, both in the same investor call in which he announced his Tesla return and, without evidence, claimed that protests against the company had been "paid for," and on Musk's other business, X, where he once again re-posted support for Germany's far-right party, AfD.
Personally, I'm struggling to see why a Tesla investor should be heartened by the news that its deadbeat CEO is pivoting back. It's not as if taking a break from Washington is going to get anyone to forget that the brand is incontrovertibly linked to Musk. But the protests are clearly getting to Musk. And on this fine Wednesday afternoon, that is something to celebrate indeed.
—Inae Oh
