Veteran investors, like Gerber Kawasaki's co-founder, Ross Gerber and Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives, have criticized Elon Musk's return to politics and questioned the Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) Board of Directors (BOD) as company stock declined almost 7% in the last 24 hours.
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What Happened: Gerber took to social media platform X on Monday, slamming the Tesla Board of Directors, calling the entity "a joke" in his post.
"They are Elon vampires sucking the blood of tesla equity. They will do and say nothing," Gerber said before adding that no one was in favor of the "Elon First" party as he criticized Musk's proposed America First political party to take on U.S. President Donald Trump.
Elsewhere, Ives shared his thoughts in an interview with CNBC TV18 Prime on Monday. "It's the exact opposite of where you wanna see him at," Ives said when asked about Musk's return to politics.
The Tesla bull added that Musk risks becoming "a foe" for "Trump and the Republican Party" which is something a Tesla investor would not want to see. Ives conceded that Musk's political activities have put Tesla stock under pressure.
"It's the worry about if Musk continues to go down this route, what does that mean in terms of regulatory, in terms of Trump," he said. However, Ives did acknowledge that Trump and the GOP would want Musk in their camp.
Speaking on the Tesla Board, Ives said, "The board's gonna have to take some sort of action," in the situation and he referenced Musk's involvement with DOGE in the past. "There were some overtures or shots across the bow from the Board at the height of the DOGE situation," he said.
"You cannot have Musk start his political party and remain CEO of Tesla," Ives said, in what could be some harsh words from Ives, who usually maintains bullish views on the EV giant.
Why It Matters: The criticism follows Musk's doubling down on his political ambitions as tensions between the billionaire and Trump continue to rise, with Musk reigniting the Jeffrey Epstein Client List row.
Musk's decision to found his political party has been slammed by experts like former DOGE advisor James Fishback, as well as Trump, who called the idea a "train wreck" and reiterated the centuries-long two-party system in the U.S.
However, Musk has also found support, perhaps from the least likely sources as users on Chinese social media rallied behind the billionaire as his feud with Trump intensified over the latter's Big, Beautiful Bill signed into law on the Fourth of July.
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