Wedbush Analysts Say Musk Needs to Announce He Will ‘Balance DOGE and Being Tesla CEO’

Long-time Tesla (TSLA) bull Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, says Elon Musk is the only one who can turn the EV maker’s reputation around and the billionaire needs to show he is balancing his role working with the Department of Government Efficiency and the U.S. car maker.

Ives, along with two other Wedbush analysts, stuck with his outperform rating and $550 price target for Tesla on Wednesday. However, the analysts noted that the company is suffering a “brand tornado crisis” due to a political backlash from Musk’s work with DOGE—the Trump administration’s cost-cutting agency.

To “change the narrative” around the stock, Musk needs to “formally announce (he) is going to balance DOGE and being Tesla CEO,” the analysts said. A statement like this, the analysts said, could prevent permanent brand damage for the U.S. car maker.

And another measure Musk needs to take, the analysts said, is provide investors with a “roadmap and timing” for the lower-cost EVs that Tesla is planning this year as well as details on the rollout of unsupervised full self-driving in Austin, set for June.

“Tesla is going through a crisis and there is one person who can fix it…Musk,” the analysts wrote.

Tesla shares have fallen 40% so far this year, hammered by the backlash as well as investors’ perception that the DOGE role is distracting Musk from running the EV maker. Tesla has also seen its sales slow in the U.S., China, and in Europe.

Tesla shares are down more than 1% Thursday.