Tesla investor disappointed in Musk and wants him to quit

US investor Ross Gerber, whose company owns about 260,000 Tesla shares worth about $105 million, has called on Ilon Musk to either focus entirely on running the company or step down as CEO. In an interview with Sky News on Tuesday, he said Tesla was facing a crisis because of Musk's actions.

The investor said that Musk has taken on "too much" and is not capable of running the car manufacturing business, running social network X and in addition, working for the government.

It's time for someone else to take over the Tesla business. After all, the business has been essentially abandoned for a long time. Musk should "either return to Tesla and become its full-fledged CEO, giving up other positions, or focus on government work and continue his business but find an appropriate CEO for Tesla," he said.

Gerber indicated that he is angry at Musk for "just destroying the reputation of the company."

Sales are plummeting, so yes, it's a crisis. You literally can't sell the best product on the market because the CEO is such an ambiguous figure," Gerber said.

For his part, Musk, speaking to Fox News reporters, said that things at the automaker have started to go from bad to worse out of "domestic terrorism." He attributed his business failures to a "coordinated attack by enemies" and added that it was "leftists" and "Democrats" who were to blame for the arson attacks on Tesla dealerships and cars around the world. He did not, however, accept that his political rhetoric and decisions to fire workers across America by the thousands could have anything to do with the business he runs.

I believe that there are larger forces at work here as well. I mean I don't know who is funding this and who is coordinating this because it's just crazy. I've never seen anything like this. Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these vicious attacks," Musk said.

At the same time, he suggested that Tesla cars have stopped buying and car dealerships with them are set on fire because he is "fighting corruption and waste."

We should add that during Musk's tenure in Donald Trump's administration, Tesla's capitalisation fell by 48%, and in the first two months of 2025 Tesla's sales fell by 71% in Germany and 44% in France - the two largest electric car markets in the European Union. The reason for this experts call the actions and statements of Ilon Musk, including in the framework of his work in the Department of Government Efficiency, as well as his support of extreme right-wing parties in Europe.

It became known that since the beginning of the year, the personal fortune of Ilon Musk has decreased by more than 100 billion dollars.