Elon Musk Responds to Calls He Should Step Down as Tesla CEO – Musk Thanks a Tesla Investor Who Says He’ll Sell 75% of His Tesla Shares if Elon Steps Down

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Elon Musk has acknowledged calls for his resignation as Tesla CEO after disappointing Q1 delivery results. Musk expressed gratitude to an investor who threatened to sell 75% of his Tesla shares if Musk stepped down as CEO.

Elon Musk has addressed calls for him to step down as Tesla CEO. Musk made his comments in response to a Tesla investor who goes by the X handle Teslaconomics.

Teslaconomics is one of the strongest supporters of both Tesla and Elon Musk.

And in defense of Musk, Teslanomics has come out against the growing call, even among Tesla investors, for Musk to resign from his CEO position at the EV maker.

Teslanomics not only defends Musk’s leadership position at Tesla but says he’ll immediately sell 75% of his TSLA shares if Musk steps down as CEO.

Expanding on his belief that Musk is essential to Tesla’s future, Teslanomics highlights key opportunities the company is exploring, such as level 5 fully autonomous vehicles, a robotaxi, and the Optimus robot, emphasizing that none of these innovations would be possible without Musk's influence.

Teslanomics writes…

“If you think Elon doesn’t need to be CEO of Tesla, you clearly haven’t done your homework.

He is Tesla’s most important asset - the reason moonshot ideas like Unsupervised FSD, Robotaxis, and Optimus are even on the table, let alone become a reality.

I wouldn’t be a Tesla investor if Elon wasn’t leading the way. And if he ever stepped away, I would sell 75% of my Tesla shares IMMEDIATELY.

Smart long-term investors know that Elon is the reason we stand behind this company.”

Beneath his post, Teslanomics featured a brief AI-generated video of Elon Musk, donning a coat adorned with Tesla’s logo and sunglasses, set against a backdrop of fire and lightning.

Given the video portraying Musk as a superhero and threat to sell 75% of his Tesla shares if he is removed from his CEO position, it is clear that Teslanomics is a huge fan of Musk.

Teslanomic’s post supporting Musk arrives as Tesla reports one of the steepest declines in vehicle deliveries in the company’s history.

Some of the delivery contraction can be attributed to the fact that Tesla has shifted to producing the updated Model Y in all four of its vehicle factories around the world.

However, examining the delivery numbers while setting aside the Model Y indicates that Tesla still faces a significant demand problem for the rest of its vehicle lineup.

Quarter over quarter, Cybertruck, Model S, and Model X deliveries are down 45%.

And according to the regional data we’ve analyzed so far, Model 3 deliveries are significantly down across the world.

A decline in deliveries is bad enough; however, this situation is even more critical for Tesla, as the EV maker is seen as a high-growth company. According to Tesla’s own guidance, vehicle deliveries were projected to increase by 50% each year until they reach 10 million vehicles annually by 2030.

However, let alone growth, Tesla’s Q1 2025 delivery is 20% lower than what the company delivered back in Q1 2023.

Tesla’s delivery numbers initially declined between 2023 and 2024, and now they are decreasing from 2024 to 2025.

As I mentioned, if Tesla was growing according to the company’s long-term plan of 50% compounded growth each year, Tesla’s delivery in Q1 2025 was supposed to reach 951,000 units.

However, according to the latest delivery numbers, in Q1 2025, Tesla only delivered 387,000 vehicles.

This is 615,000 fewer vehicles than what the EV maker was supposed to deliver in the first quarter of the year.

In other words, Tesla’s Q1 2025 deliveries are only 41% of what the company planned.

With this massive miss, it’s not surprising that a lot of Tesla investors might be frustrated with Musk.

However, during this precarious time, Musk has chosen to highlight his core supporters. He expressed gratitude for their backing, and in response to Teslanomics, who partly warned that he would sell 75% of his shares if Musk stepped down, Musk simply responded by writing, “Thanks.”

CEOs don't often need to highlight investors threatening to exit if the CEO departs. Nonetheless, due to Tesla’s declining sales, Musk seems to be in a vulnerable leadership role.

Overall, looking at the comments, a significant number of Tesla loyalists still seem to support Musk. However, please let me know what you think in the comments. Share your ideas by clicking the RED “Add new comment” button below. Also, make sure to visit our site, torquenews.com/Tesla, regularly for the latest updates.

For more information, check out: A Cybertruck Owner Says He’s Thrilled that Tesla Sold Him a Defective Truck. He adds, “I Can Now Return the Truck to Tesla at Full Price & Buy a Brand-New Cybertruck for $30,000 Less"

Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and the evolution of the EV space daily for several years. He covers everything about Tesla, from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.

Tesla is poised to ramp production. Key projects like the Cyber Truck and M3 & MY Refresh had to be taken care of before introducing new and/or more affordable models. The 2025 Q1 decline is being compared to 2024 Q4 which the year end numbers are always the highest and beginning of the year are always the lowest. RoboTaxi is still on track to launch in June. More profitable times are just ahead.

Magical thinking dude. As long as Musk insists on being a lighting rod for Trump, Tesla sales will continue to slide. He is unnecessarily and gratuitously giving away company market share to competitors in a grandiose effort to achieve political importance. Which will be gone before Trump is out of office. But his core base of customers will not forget that he gave them the middle finger in exchange for a few moments in the political spotlight. There is a good reason why other CEOs of major companies keep their mouths shut about their political preferences.

"The 2025 Q1 decline is being compared to 2024 Q4 which the year end numbers are always the highest and beginning of the year are always the lowest."

No, they literally compared first quarter numbers. But here are the numbers again:

Q1 2023: 422,875
Q1 2024: 386,810
Q1 2025: 336,681

The excuse last year was that Tesla was in the midst of a Model 3 refresh and that numbers would bounce back later in the year. Instead they had their first full year decline (and the Model 3 sales were down over 17% for the full year).

The Cybertruck was supposed to be ramping up, instead deliveries dropped in Q4, and judging by registration data and production data in the recall suggest deliveries under 8k for the quarter.

The news with Ryder slashing it's Semi order suggests that is also going to be delayed further and come to market with a larger than expected pricetag.

The current applications for Robotaxi operation don't suggest anything approaching a large scale rollout (or even functional unsupervised operation).

The lower cost vehicle appears to have pushed off to next year, while several other OEMs are poised to release low cost models (including the new Bolt).

TL;DR: It looks increasingly like 2025 is another "lost year" for Tesla. Maybe they're still a good long term investment on the strength of other business units, but their automotive business is struggling.

It doesn’t matter what product you have, if no one wants to buy it, you will fail. Musk made himself one of most unpopular people in the world. He has a world wide product. Then he made a salute of the most unpopular person to ever live and didn’t retract the statement. He can’t ever recover. The company will never recover with him running it. I was the biggest fan possible. Hung in every word he ever spoke. He changed and I have to accept that. I don’t like that Tesla will now fail but that’s reality. He did it to himself. Just like the real Tesla has better ideas and better tech by a long shot. But he still failed based on the fact that no one bought his product.

Doesn't matter how many shares he has. his opinion is just his opinion. People in his cult are not logical and are just fanbois. Like fans of a team your guy is never bad and anything good is great.

If the CEO becomes toxic to your vote customers and the brand on many key world markets he had to go. Of course, the board is his yes people and not really working on the best interest of shareholders anyway.

Interesting take on it, yet you call it a cult but isn't that more accurately describing the left. I mean after all it was democrats who weaponized the judicial system, it was democrats who censored American voices throughout social media depriving them of their constitutionally protected rights, it was democrats who altered laws and revised statutes to go after a man and not a crime while refusing to prosecute violent criminals, it was democrats who attempted to manipulate the election by bringing in millions of unvetted foreign nationals to commit election fraud, it was democrats who attempted to murder their political rivals twice. So really now, isn't your liberal side who is the real "cult".

I too will dump my shares if Musk is pushed out as CEO. If there's anyone on the board who believes they're smarter than Musk, wake up from your sleep, you're dreaming.

No one with a clear head who owns Tesla shares, and has been following Tesla closely from day one, will want Musk out. The best of Tesla is yet to come.

Like all the fanbois of Kamala who are out there burning teslas and assaulting families driving in their EV? That is a cult. Tesla makes great vehicles. Best bang for the buck EV you can buy. The only problem Tesla has is the absolutely insane lefties.

Totally meaningless post about the promise to sell 75% of shares. Could be 75% of nothing. And given the nature of the video attached to that post, it's obviously a very immature person posting -- so another reason not to place any importance on this. Was obviously just mentioned in this "article" as click-bait -- unless the author of this article was actually stupid enough to think it means anything.

Exactly correct 100%. Musk has overstayed his tenure and his welcome. Tesla would not be the company it is now if not for Musk. I was a huge admirer. No more. His obvious weakness is that he will sacrifice his standing as an effective CEO in exchange for political power. As we all know political power is a fleeting thing. Much better to wield political power from a low profile. The leaders of other great companies keep their politics to themselves for good reason. Musk has not learned that lesson. But he will. It is coming.

Seriously. I'm willing to bet that someone who goes by Teslaconomics on social media, who has the time to worship and retweet Elon all day, has the power of a fart when it comes to impacting equity markets.

Guy is delusional so it doesn't really matter. Here is Elon's track record in delivering FSD. Good thing he is now distracted by DOGE.

Since 2013, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly made inaccurate predictions for Tesla to achieve Level 5 autonomy within one to three years, most recently predicting the end of 2023.

Submitted by Brandon (not verified) on April 5, 2025 - 8:04AM

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I can respect Elon’s past business accomplishments - there are many. But his current mindset and endeavors are clearly not conducive to Tesla’s future. New leadership is sometimes a necessary step that a company must take. This is not without precedent in the corporate world. It is time for a breath of fresh air from the stagnant funk that the employees, owners, and investors are choking on.

Submitted by Denyss McKnight (not verified) on April 5, 2025 - 9:22AM

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Why is a guy who calls shuttle launch pads "Super Heavy Boosters" for his X ships in charge of anything beyond selecting the employee meal options for the day? When I read that news, the world seemed a little more...sane.

Submitted by Steve (not verified) on April 5, 2025 - 11:24AM

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He needs go. In any other company, he would be long gone by now. Only other option is to get out of politics and focus on the company. The damage though he has caused is probably unrecoverable with him as leader. You can’t grow a company if half of the world is against your product!

Submitted by DeanMcManis (not verified) on April 5, 2025 - 12:36PM

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If ANY other CEO did this kind of damage to their brand and sales, they would be fired in a heartbeat. Musk should be no different. With the exception of Tesla cult followers, everybody realizes that Musk needs to leave to stop the bleeding of the wounds that he inflicted on the company. Musk's enemies could not have done worse damage to Tesla than he has done himself. Musk should leave DOGE and divest his shares in Tesla so that Tesla can recover and thrive again.

Submitted by Helen hanson (not verified) on April 5, 2025 - 1:18PM

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Musk needs to resign after he destroyed peoples life without a blink of an eye. He seemed to have taken a thrill to do that especially with this chainsaw.

Submitted by Forrest L (not verified) on April 5, 2025 - 2:33PM

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I already did sell 95% of my TSLA stock. A rocket can only go up for so long before it comes down to earth. It was a good run from $12 to $360. Thanks Elon, but when you do a obvious and intentional Natzi salute and then chainsaw the federal workforce for your own legal benefit, I can't support that. Tesla has betrayed there original goal of spurring EV adoption and has turned into a vanity project and cash cow of Elon's discretion.

Tim Walz done the same salute,as well as Hilary Clinten,plus others,so they all must be Natzi,right?Should fact check thing instead of just throwing statments out there.The left has lost their minds,I myself hope that every one of the ones who insight violice,goes to jail for a long,long time.