Noting the value of Tesla stock collapsing after investors bail on Elon Musk's automotive company, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough claimed it was inevitable and not just because of Musk's personal growing unpopularity.
With the stock in freefall, as sales collapse at a time when other EV products are seeing sales increases, Scarborough claimed it appears that Musk allied himself with Donald Trump because his businesses, much like Trump's have done in the past, are floundering.
On Wednesday's edition of "Morning Joe," the co-host amusingly used Kenny Rogers "The Gambler" to frame his narrative and tell the panel, "Listen to these facts, I wrote them down ... Tesla sales down in the U.S. right? Last year, well, electric vehicle sales up in China. Tesla sales down 49 percent, while EV sales for the rest of the country up 85 percent. In Germany, Tesla sales down 76 percent, while EV sales in that country overall up 31 percent."
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He then added, "His technology is not working. His driverless cars aren't working, the batteries are antiquated."
He continued, "But think about this: this guy's company has lost, Musk's company has lost close to $900 billion in market cap over the last three months. Tesla has always been a meme stock based, you know, as the feller said, the profit to earnings ratio is horribly skewed. One of the most horribly skewed profit to earnings ratios in like the history of Wall Street."
"And so when the bubble bursts on the reputation, the meme stock goes down and my only point here, his point, actually not mine, is Tesla is in deep trouble and it's in deep trouble," he added. "Not just because he's in Washington, but maybe he's in Washington because he knows it's in deep trouble and giving Donald Trump a couple of hundred million dollars."
"That may have been his bailout to help save Tesla, to help save SpaceX, to help save a lot of these other companies that are struggling now, and not just because people think he's doing a Nazi salute or just because he's saying outrageously horrible things or firing veterans every day," he continued. "Maybe it's happening because he knows his companies are going in the wrong direction."
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