It's a rare thing to shoot yourself in the foot and win a marathon. For years, Elon Musk has managed to do something like that with Tesla, achieving monumental success in spite of a series of self-inflicted disasters. There was the time he heavily promoted the company's automated factory, only to later admit that its 'crazy, complex network of conveyor belts' had thrown production of the Model 3 off track; and the time a tweet led him to be sued for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission; and the time he said that the Tesla team had 'dug our own grave' with the massively delayed and overhyped Cybertruck. Tesla is nonetheless the most valuable car company in the world by a wide margin. But luck runs out. Yesterday evening, Tesla reported first-quarter earnings for 2025, and they were abysmal: Profits dropped 71 percent from the same time last year. Musk sounded bitter on the call with investors that followed, blaming the company's misfortune on protesters who have raged at...
learn more
