Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

During the opening of the Tesla Q1 2025 earnings call — where the company reported a 71% decline in net income and a 9% decrease in revenue — CEO Elon Musk said:

“Now, the protests that you'll see out there, they're very organized, they're paid for. They're obviously not going to say, admit that the reason that they're protesting is because they're receiving fraudulent money or that they are the recipients of wasteful largesse, but they're going to come up with some other reason. But that is -- the real reason for the protests, the actual reason is that those receiving the waste and fraud wish to continue receiving it. That is the real thing that's going on here, obviously.”

Sounds like his boss, albeit a little more articulate.

He is claiming that the protestors are “receiving fraudulent money or. . .are the recipients of wasteful largess.”

It is always someone else who is to blame. Always.

The people, who are also being paid by some unnamed group or individual (too bad Biden isn’t richer because everything that blame can be ascribed to he fits well), are also somehow making ill-gotten gains.

Musk is referring to the backlash to his activities at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

As the Cato Institute — which was founded in 1974 as the Charles Koch Foundation, so you know this is no hotbed of liberalism — points out, Musk’s claims about savings are about as realistic as his claims about self-driving cars (in 2015 he said there would be coast-to-coast self-driving capability in a matter of months, then in 2018 he said full self-driving by 2019; in 2019 he said there would be one million robotaxis by 2020. . . ).

Cato notes that in October 2024 he said DOGE would cut $2 trillion. Then it was $1 trillion. 

Now it is $150 billion.

Cato — and this is as of April 23: 

“Unfortunately, even that $150 billion claim is optimistic. Itemized, verifiable cuts (those with receipts) sit at just $63 billion. Many of these receipts lack detail, contain errors, or otherwise have excessive savings claims that make the topline figure suspect.”

Yes, it is all in keeping with Trump’s Musk’s claims. If something doesn’t go as planned, just throw out some other nonsense to cover up the one that didn’t come to be.

Arguably, many of the people who are protesting at Tesla dealerships are not part of a financed cabal. More likely these are people who are — dare I say? — pissed at things like chainsaw-like cuts at many federal agencies.

The number of people cut varies. Cato has it at “about 12,000 personnel on net (closer to 130,000 personnel cut in gross).

No matter how you look at it, many of whom were involved in the administration and execution of programs that benefit all Americans’ health, safety and overall well-being.

Should some of them been eliminated? Certainly. But the DOGE reckless approach to human resources is evidently enough to make people who have never driven a Tesla or have no such intention ever to get out and protest Musk.

Musk said on the call that as he’ll stay engaged at DOGE for “the remainder of the President's term, just to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stop does not come roaring back, which will do if it has the chance.”

But he’ll reduce his time to a day or two.

Is it because of the protestors?

No.

It is because Tesla stockholders have seen the value of their stock drop.

On December 17, 2024, Tesla was trading at $479.86. On April 23 it was down to $257.41. Which was at least better than April 8, when it was $221.86.

Musk said, “at Tesla, we've gone through many, many crises over the years and actually been through many near-death experiences. We were probably on the ragged edge of death at least on maybe a dozen times. It's been so many times.”

What he didn’t say was that it took the company 17 years to earn a profit. It didn’t have one until 2020.

What he also didn’t mention that last year Tesla made $2.76 billion in carbon credit revenues. 

The US Department of Energy, US Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, all contribute to the funding of those credits.

And in Q1 2025 Tesla had total net income of $409 million — but thanks to $595 million in regulatory credits it didn’t have to report a loss of $189 million.

If the government works to Musk’s benefit, great. If it doesn’t, then it is going down.

Perhaps this hypocrisy has more to do with the protests than Musk is willing to acknowledge.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, where he writes primarily for the right column.