Speaking during a virtual interview at the Qatar Economic Forum, Musk addressed the company’s recent sales performance, his role at the Department of Government Efficiency and the impact of his involvement in politics.
Asked about his plan for turning Tesla’s “blowback” around, the CEO immediately dismissed the topic by saying, “Oh, it’s already turned around.”
Musk added that the company’s “weakest market” is Europe guaranteeing that Tesla is “strong everywhere else.”
“So our sales are doing well at this point — We don’t anticipate any meaningful sales shortfall,” he continued.
Tesla shares have jumped over 85% over the last twelve months, bringing the company’s market cap to over $1 trillion. Musk cited the stock price jump despite the weaker-than-expected sales and earnings performance recently reported.
“And the, you know, obviously the stock market recognizes that, since we’re now back over a trillion dollars in market cap,” he stated. “So clearly the market is aware of the situation. So it’s already turned around, but sales.”
Commenting on the potential role his image had in the sales decline earlier this year, the CEO defended that “there are also people buying it because Elon’s crazy or however they may view it.”
“So yes, we’ve lost some sales, perhaps on the left, but we’ve gained them on the right” — he added.
Musk said sales numbers “at this point are strong” adding that Tesla sees “no problem with demand.” The chief executive continued by mentioning the stock performance as an indicator for the company’s healty situation.
“So what I mean, you can just look at the stock price if you want the best insider information the stock market analysts have,” he stated. “That and stock wouldn’t be trading near all time highs if it was not if things weren’t in good shape. They’re fine, don’t worry about it.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Tesla’s country chief for the Australian market said that the company’s supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) system will have no “regulatory blocks” to deploy in the market.
Last week, Tesla showed footage from the tests of the FSD in Australia — the first hand-drive market to test the system.
