Tesla (TSLA) shareholders' faith in Elon Musk has been rewarded many times over.
Over the last five years, Tesla shares have increased more than 530%, so it's no wonder that shareholders voted to give Musk an 11-figure compensation package, twice.
But despite the stock's stellar performance, Tesla, the company, has seen better days.
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The company reported a 9% decline in first-quarter revenue to $19.3 billion, missing analyst estimates by $2 billion.
Earnings of 27 cents per share fell short of Wall Street expectations by 34%.
Europe, while only a small percentage of sales, was a challenging region in the quarter, as sales in Germany reportedly fell 62% and numbers in Norway, the U.K. and France weren't much better.
Auto revenue for the company fell 20% year over year to $13.9 billion.
Clearly, not great.
However, through it all, investors have bid up Tesla shares by more than 40% since that disastrous earnings release because Elon Musk also announced that he was returning to his day job at Tesla full time, leaving behind his political ambitions for the time being.
As an unapproved, unofficial cabinet member in President Donald Trump's administration, Musk is legally only allowed to serve for up to 130 days in his position at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Elon Musk says Tesla is already out of the woods
“It's already turned around,” Musk responded curtly when asked about turning around Tesla's declining sales.
When asked for evidence that it had turned around, Musk said, “Europe is our weakest market, but we're strong everywhere else. Our sales are doing well at this point, and we don't anticipate any sales shortfall.”
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Musk did not provide evidence that the sales picture has improved, as the 20% decline in auto sales clearly shows that the issue was much bigger than just Europe.
But he did point to his company's stock performance as a way to show that the ship has been righted.
“Obviously, the stock market recognizes that since we are back over a trillion-dollar market cap,” Musk said. “Clearly, the market is aware of the situation. So it's already turned around.”
He said that any politically left-leaning buyers who abandoned the company have been replaced by people who more align with his politics.
He punctuated his point by emphasizing that Tesla has no problem with demand.
Tesla shares have been on fire
The public will have to wait another two months to determine whether Musk is telling the truth about demand.
However, Musk is absolutely right about one thing: the market doesn't seem to care either way.
If most companies missed revenue estimates by $2 billion and earnings estimates by 34%, their stocks would feel the pain the next day and the following one, until something changed investor sentiment.
But Tesla isn't like most companies. As of Tuesday afternoon, Tesla shares had jumped more than 50% since opening trading on April 23, the day after its earnings release.
Despite the rough quarter, Tesla investors got the news they'd been waiting all year for: Elon Musk is leaving his post in Washington, D.C., to spend more time at his day job in Austin running Tesla.
For most investors, that is all that matters. So when Musk says, without evidence, that demand is back on track, that is certainly all they need to hear.
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