Tesla bull Cathie Wood buys $35 million in stock, but it needs a ‘real CEO’ if Elon Musk won’t work full-time at Tesla, claims irate investor Ross Gerber

So far this year Tesla’s stock is down 30%. As of Thursday it reached a 10-month low of $160 a share. The decline is all the more notable because it follows an extreme high the company saw in November 2021 when its stock soared to $407. The late 2021 peak capped a rally of 2,600% from just $15 a share in August 2019. In the last roughly 28 months since then,  the stock plunged about 60%. 

For Gerber, much of Tesla’s stock slide could reverse if Musk adjusted his behavior. “This could turn around very quickly if either Tesla gets a real CEO who’s actually going to help the company, or Elon changes his tune and actually comes back to working at Tesla and promoting the brand in a positive way,” Gerber said on Thursday. 

In the past Gerber has placed such a focus on Musk’s individual decisions because of the level of influence he has at the company. This isn’t the first time Gerber has been frustrated with Musk and the level of control he has at Tesla. On a January appearance on CNBC Gerber said that the company was almost entirely controlled by Musk. Even though Musk technically only owns 13% of the shares, with an option for a further 7%, his tight grip on the board makes Tesla a company “100% controlled by Elon,” according to Geber. 

As recently as February, Gerber still expressed belief in Tesla’s long-term growth possibilities and in Musk’s position at the company. Though he did offer the Tesla CEO advice: “just to shut up,” Gerber told Yahoo Finance. 

In his most recent comments Gerber referenced some of Musk’s activities outside of Tesla as being a distraction. Gerber previously said Musk was “out over his skis” in running social media platform X. This time around Gerber was irritated over Musk’s effort to seek an unprecedented pay package. Tesla investors sued Musk, claiming $56 billion was too much to pay a single executive. A Delaware judge voided the pay package early this year. 

“The original story that I think most investors bought into with Tesla didn’t really include Elon and Twitter,” Gerber said. “For a long time, we all hoped that it really wouldn’t affect Tesla and the demand for its products. We all know that that has now happened. The demand for Tesla products is obviously lower. They’ve had to discount and do many things that hurt margins and returns and, ultimately, profits for Tesla.”

Demand for electric vehicles waned across the board. Some of the biggest electric vehicle manufacturers are scaling back production. Consumers are turning back to either traditional combustion engine cars or hybrids over concerns about battery resilience and range. 

Meanwhile, Wood and her fund ARK Invest have long backed Tesla and Musk. In 2023, when the stock had rebounded from drastic declines in 2022 she began harvesting returns, selling off some shares. Then as the stock continued to decline from January to this month she bought the dip and strengthened her position. In January Wood’s ETF bought about $141 million worth of Tesla shares—a move she repeated this week when she picked up another $35 million’s worth. 

Wood has been unmoved by the slowing demand for electric vehicles. She has called the decision by some Detroit automakers like GM and Ford to curb their electric vehicle plans a mistake. Though, it was a misjudgement she welcomed as a major Tesla bull. “The fact that they’re pulling back means there’s more [market] share for Tesla and others who choose to go for it,” Wood told Bloomberg in December. 

Musk and Wood have a good relationship. The two recently held a public conversation on  Spaces, with topics ranging from passive investing to the complexities of running a public company. In the past Wood has praised Musk as a problem solver.  During a CNBC interview in October she said the “intensity of his brain cells takes him to new answers” when facing business challenges. At Tesla that means the company is closer to its goal of autonomous vehicles, which Wood called “a game changer.”