A brutal session for Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) saw shares tumble 10.77% to close at $343.69, a drop that coincided with significant Republican losses in the midterm elections, including the Democratic flip of Texas.
The political shift raised fresh questions about the future of CEO Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence ambitions, given his deep ties to the state and its fast-growing technology infrastructure.
Against that turbulent backdrop, prominent investor Ross Gerber, co-founder of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth Management, chose the moment to reflect publicly on what he described as a better era for the electric vehicle maker.
Posting on X on November 5, 2026, Gerber shared a clip of his own television appearances from 2020, a period when he was openly and enthusiastically bullish on the company.
His message was pointed: “It ended 5 years ago when Elon started selling his tesla stock to buy Twitter in 2022.”
Gerber also posted an image featuring three vehicles from Tesla’s 2019-era concept pipeline, the Cyberquad electric all-terrain vehicle, the Roadster, and the Semi Truck, captioning it simply “Tesla circa 2020.”
The Cyberquad, once positioned as a bold product concept, is today sold by Tesla exclusively as a ride-on toy for children, priced at $1,650.
The timeline Gerber points to as the turning point corresponds to two large tranches of Musk’s Tesla share sales in 2022, with approximately $8.5 billion sold in April and a further $6.9 billion offloaded in August of that year.
Musk acknowledged at the time that the August proceeds could help finance his $44 billion Twitter acquisition if equity partners did not come through and the deal was compelled to close, though his April filings cited no specific purpose for the sales.
That acquisition, completed after Twitter sued Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery following his attempt to walk away from the deal, has since become a focal point for critics of his leadership at Tesla.
Gerber has grown increasingly critical of Musk’s stewardship, telling Benzinga earlier in 2026 that he objected to the company’s strategic pivot toward robotics, the phasing out of premium vehicle models, and what he characterized as a stagnating product lineup.
He has also argued that Musk’s rightward political shift has eroded Tesla’s brand value and weighed on sales, a concern that has gained traction among some institutional observers as the company’s customer demographics shift.
Overnight trading offered modest relief, with TSLA edging up 0.77% to $346.35, though the session close remained a stark reminder of how closely the company’s fortunes have become tied to its CEO’s political and business profile.
