Elon Musk tells Tesla analyst to ‘shut up’ over suggestions to limit his political activities

Tesla CEO Elon Musk hit back at an analyst’s suggestion that the company’s board of directors needs to take steps to keep his focus on Tesla rather than the new political party he’s creating.

Musk announced his intent to create an America Party over the weekend, which sent Tesla stock plunging. That prompted Wedbush Securities managing director and senior equity research analyst Dan Ives to write an investor note saying the move is a “tipping point” and should prompt the board to act to ensure Musk’s political activism doesn’t conflict with his duties as CEO.

Ives summarized the note in a post on X in which he expressed Wedbush’s view that the Tesla board should update Musk’s pay package to give him 25% voting control and clear a path for a merger with xAI; establish guardrails for the amount of time Musk spends at Tesla as part of the pay package; and have oversight over his political endeavors.

“Shut up, Dan,” Musk replied on X that was posted Wednesday morning.

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Tesla is down over 1.1% on Wednesday following the post and has declined more than 5.6% in the past five days – having dropped from $312.70 at the close of last week’s trading to a weekly low of $291.35 early Monday morning before it pared some of those losses. 

Tesla’s stock is down over 22% year to date due to slow EV sales as well as political blowback over Musk’s support for President Donald Trump.

Musk’s role within the Trump administration came to an end in late May, when his temporary status as a special government employee expired. 

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His actions as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) spurred protests at Tesla dealerships and consumer boycotts among those angered by DOGE’s cuts to the federal workforce. 

Following his departure from the administration, Musk was a vocal critic of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act – a signature tax cut and spending package backed by Trump and Republicans in Congress – over its impact on federal budget deficits, vowing to fund primary challenges against key supporters of the bill.

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That led to a public feud between Musk and Trump, though the two toned down their rhetoric and sought to move past the spat before the billionaire Tesla CEO announced the creation of his political party.

In Ives’ full investor note, he warned that Musk’s antagonism of Trump and GOP lawmakers is “exactly the opposite of what Tesla shareholders want to see with a very important autonomous regulatory framework now on the horizon during the Trump administration.”