Ross Gerber Says Elon Musk A 'Negative' For Tesla Stock

Tesla TSLA shares have been under pressure as the company faces falling demand for its vehicles all over the world and a brand crisis amid CEO Elon Musk's involvement in politics. The stock has lost 33% in value so far this year. Tesla's deliveries fell 13% in the first quarter year over year, while sales in Europe dropped a whopping 49% in the first two months of the quarter.Ross Gerber, the co-founder and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, said in an interview with Schwab Network last month that Musk's reputation is one of the factors negatively impacting the company due to the executive's political affiliations.Gerber said that consumers need to "feel good" about buying a Tesla, but currently, concerns over political associations and the risk of negative attention are hurting customer sentiment. He said consumers do not want to be involved in the controversies related to the company, and the "fear" of how people will look at you if you are driving a Tesla car is impacting the company."We still own a lot of Tesla. I love the company, but the woes seem to just keep adding up, and the stock has come back to earth because the Musk positive has been offset now with Musk negative," Gerber said.Robo-Taxis Not Enough to Ignite GrowthTalking about Tesla's financials, Gerber said the company doesn't "look good" in terms of technicals and fundamentals, as it's going through brand and execution issues. He believes Wall Street's earnings estimates for Tesla are still high and are tied to robots and robo-taxis. Gerber called these "moonshot" projects and said Tesla needs to focus more on selling vehicles to consumers:"The growth isn’t predicated on selling robots or robo-taxis. Its growth is predicated on selling vehicles to consumers," Gerber told Schwab Network. "So, you know, these projects in some ways like moonshots are like great opportunities for Tesla that I don’t think they should not do, but they should be addressing the vehicle market that made Tesla what it is.”Trump's Victory Turned Out To Be ‘Not Good At All'Gerber said that Musk's "huge bet" on President Donald Trump initially seemed to pay off, with a widespread belief that Trump's victory would bode well for the company. However, things didn't turn out to be as expected, and the company is getting attacked "because of the CEO," he said.“The perception at the time was like this is going to be great for Tesla, but now that he’s there, it’s like how is this good, and it turns out it’s not good at all. And now people are like burning Teslas," Gerber told Schwab Network.Gerber said Tesla can go "meaningfully" higher if it meets Wall Street's earnings expectation of $3.80 next year. However, he doubts the company's ability to meet these estimates:“If It doesn’t, Tesla could go meaningfully lower with a revaluation of what the [price-to-earnings ratio] should be, and maybe it should be 50, and then you’ve got some serious decline. So it’s not me who decides that, it’s the market," Gerber said.