Ives: Tesla board must “act now and set the ground rules” around Musk’s political ambitions

Tesla bull and Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives is not pleased with Elon Musk’s latest political machinations and thinks Tesla’s board needs to step in. After Musk announced the formation of his new America Party and rekindled his beef with President Trump, the stock dropped about 7% yesterday, though it’s trading up slightly today. Ives said angering Trump by pushing a competing party is the last thing Tesla needs as it pursues its AI future.

“Tesla is heading into one of the most important stages of its growth cycle with the autonomous and robotics future now on the doorstep and cannot have Musk spending more and more time creating a political party which will require countless time, energy, and political capital.”

Ives called on Tesla’s board to create a new incentive-driven pay package that stipulates how much time Musk must spend at Tesla, along with an oversight committee to curb his political actions.

The board may have an uphill battle. Morgan Stanley analyst and Tesla bull Adam Jonas said today that “investors should be prepared for further devotion of resources (financial, time/attention) in the direction of Mr. Musk’s political priorities which may add further near-term pressure to TSLA shares.”

Ives added that he expects Musk to be CEO until at least 2030 and to potentially merge Tesla with xAI to “create one of the most powerful AI companies in the world under one roof over the next 12 to 18 months.”

Update: Ives shared his thoughts on X. Elon responded.