Ross Gerber, an early Tesla backer, says it's time for Elon Musk to go
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- A report on Wednesday said Elon Musk could soon exit the White House.
- For the investor Ross Gerber, that wouldn't be enough to turn the company's fortunes around.
- The longtime Tesla backer said the car company needed a new face to get back on its feet.
Elon Musk's possible departure from the White House isn't what Tesla needs, says a longtime investor who thinks the brand is in trouble with the divisive CEO at the helm.
Ross Gerber, an early Tesla backer who's the president of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, thinks Tesla's issues go beyond Musk's role in the DOGE office.
The White House, for its part, has denied a Politico report that Musk will depart in the coming weeks, but Gerber told Business Insider that it didn't matter either way — and that the EV maker needed a new leader and to distance itself from Musk altogether.
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"With Tesla, it's simple. It's you get another face of Tesla. It could be anybody, any CEO, somebody who's in the middle, who is a great communicator, who refocuses people on what Tesla really does," Gerber said, adding that the company needed to take measures to reorient its identity around things other than Musk. "I've been saying this for two years. Tesla needs to be Tesla."
Gerber thinks the company's brand issues aren't just related to Musk's work with DOGE and the Trump White House. He pointed to other recent controversies related to posts on X and Jewish and transgender people.
"My anger doesn't rise from the fact of his haphazard way of slashing the government," Gerber said. "My anger rises that he says incredibly insulting things to people constantly."
He added that Musk stepping away from DOGE also wouldn't necessarily mean he'd refocus his attention back on Tesla.
Gerber thinks Musk is likely to double down on his artificial intelligence projects at xAI, given the CEO's history of feuding with Sam Altman.
Gerber has repeatedly criticized Musk over the years as being absent at Tesla. Previously, he told BI he believed Musk hadn't worked at the car company in years.
"I've decided that it's done. I think the damage is done, I don't know how you fix it," Gerber said, adding that getting a new CEO was one of the few ways Tesla could move forward.
But he said he doubted Musk would try to find a replacement — and that meant investors should brace for more pain.
Gerber estimates that the stock could correct another 50% from current levels. That implies Tesla shares falling to about $141, which would represent a roughly 67% decline from the stock's all-time high in December.
Gerber correctly called a 50% decline in Tesla shares earlier this year. The stock is still down 35% from its peak.
"We've been selling shares for a long time, and that hasn't abated per se, because we still have so much," he said.
Gerber's firm sold another 28,481 shares of Tesla in the fourth quarter, according to its latest regulatory filing.
"Yeah, it's not a great time to buy the stock," Gerber said.