TLDR
- Tesla stock has fallen 37% year-to-date in 2025
- Prominent investor Ross Gerber calls for Musk to step down as CEO
- Wedbush analyst Dan Ives slashed price target by 43% from $550 to $315
- Musk’s political activities and social media behavior damaging Tesla’s brand
- Trump’s higher-than-expected tariffs adding to Tesla’s challenges
Tesla began 2025 with high hopes following Trump’s election victory, but the company’s stock has been in a downward spiral ever since. Concerns about CEO Elon Musk’s divided attention between Tesla and his government role, coupled with his controversial social media presence, have spooked investors.
The electric vehicle maker’s stock has dropped 37% year-to-date, with no clear end in sight. This decline has prompted some of the company’s most loyal supporters to call for dramatic changes.
Among the most vocal critics is Ross Gerber, a long-time Tesla investor whose firm Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management holds over 262,000 shares of the company.
Gerber has explicitly stated that Tesla needs a new CEO. “With Tesla, it’s simple. It’s you get another face of Tesla,” he said in a recent interview. “It could be anybody, any CEO, somebody who’s in the middle, who is a great communicator, who refocuses people on what Tesla really does.”
His concerns extend beyond Musk’s government work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Gerber points to Musk’s social media behavior as particularly damaging to Tesla’s brand.
“My anger rises that he says incredibly insulting things to people constantly,” Gerber added, suggesting that even if Musk leaves his government role, his online presence will continue to harm Tesla.
Wall Street Growing Increasingly Concerned
The investor concerns are echoed by Wall Street analysts. In a particularly striking move, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives—previously one of Tesla’s biggest bulls—slashed his price target by a whopping 43% from $550 to $315.
Ives didn’t mince words about the reason: “Musk-created brand crisis + Trump tariffs = perfect storm for Tesla.”
This dramatic reduction represents a potential market value loss of approximately $750 billion. Despite this adjustment, Ives maintained his Buy rating on the stock.
The average analyst price target now sits at about $346 per share, down from approximately $381 in early March. This reduction reflects Wall Street’s growing concern about Tesla’s future prospects under Musk’s leadership.
Twin Challenges: Brand Damage and Tariffs
Tesla faces a double blow of self-inflicted brand damage and external economic pressures.
The first-quarter delivery numbers were disappointing, with Tesla delivering only 337,000 cars—13% less than the same period last year and about 40,000 fewer than Wall Street expected.
Adding to these woes, President Trump recently announced tariffs far higher than anticipated. While analysts had expected average import tariff rates of 10% to 15%, the actual rates announced were closer to 25%.
“The economic tariff Armageddon unleashed by the Trump Administration is a double whammy for Tesla in our view,” Ives noted.
Tesla will face increased costs for imported parts in the U.S. while simultaneously dealing with disruptions to its global supply chain.
These tariffs could potentially reduce Tesla’s full-year 2025 operating profits by an estimated $3 billion, against current projections of about $8.3 billion.
Ives’s assessment of the brand damage is stark: “Tesla has essentially become a political symbol globally, and that is a very bad thing for the future of this disruptive tech stalwart and the brand crisis tornado that has now turned into an F5 tornado. We now estimate Tesla has lost/destroyed at least 10% of its future customer base globally based on self-created brand issues.”
Despite these challenges, Tesla did see a brief bump in share price when Musk held an all-hands meeting earlier this month. However, Gerber believes the damage done is so severe that only Musk’s resignation will allow the company to truly recover.
Gerber has even made a specific prediction about how far Tesla stock could fall, suggesting it could correct an additional 50% from its current price of less than $250 per share. This would put Tesla shares at about $141, representing a roughly 67% decline from the stock’s all-time high reached in December.
For now, Tesla shareholders wait anxiously to see whether Musk will proceed with his reported plan to leave his government role, and whether that will be enough to stem the bleeding in Tesla’s stock price.
According to Gerber, Tesla needs to refocus on what it does best—making innovative electric vehicles—rather than being constantly overshadowed by its CEO’s extracurricular activities.
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