A number of years ago, one of my aunts said we should boycott Nestle because of their dumping practices in Africa in regard to children’s baby formula. With all retail companies, there is likely one division or another that someone does not like their policies. However, with a conglomerate, there are plenty of other people that do like the company. Every company which has a retail presence at one time or other will have people that do not like it for some reason or another. Many times, the reasons are valid, but there are enough other customers, so boycotts are difficult.

In the last 15 years, most of the world has heard about Elon Musk with his brands of Tesla, X formerly Twitter and Space X. The companies have been leaders in design and innovation and many people around the world have a good rating for Mr. Musk. Then Elon became involved with President Trump’s administration. From the outside looking at the methods Mr. Musk has used it seems chaotic at best and producing few results. It is noted Mr. Musk has successfully navigated US government grants for his companies, however, how the apparatus of government works he seems to have overlooked that part.

In an article by Eric Reguly of Reuters, the fact that Mr. Musk has associated himself with President Trump’s policies and many seem chaotic, particularly across the board tariffs on the US’s neighbors. The rationale is that President Trump is using tariffs for over purposes, although it is very hard to figure what those purposes are and if the purposes could be done in a different manner. The public does seems not to like Tesla at the moment.

The critical aspect for Telsa is do the people who can afford to buy and actually buy the cars, are they mad at Mr. Musk? If they are, sales drop.

According to analysts such as Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, the reason why you want to own Tesla stock is the future of the driver less cars. If you believe that soon all taxi or uber services will be driver less, then Telsa is one of the world’s leaders and growth will be coming very soon. If you think driver less cars are still into the future, then the company has problems.

In terms of sales, China is the world’s largest car market and Tesla used to be a leader. According to the China’s Passenger Car Association, Telsa’s sales in February fell 49% from a year earlier to 30,688 vehicles. It tells you the luxury market in China is beginning to be dominated by Chinese carmakers such as BYD. If Chinese luxury EV cars come into the US, Telsa’s sales are likely to fall.

In Europe, sales are down by 45% and the company’s share of the car market dropped from 1.8% to 1%. In Germany, where Tesla has a plant to make cars, the German Association of Automotive Industry said sales are down 76%. In France they are down 26% and in Norway where the highest EV penetration is located, sales fell 50%.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, some of these companies have a global reach to the public and there are reasons why active members of the senior levels take low profiles in the media. They take a high profile behind the scenes, but the focus is on the brand and selling it. There are many reasons why people may not like a brand, it is important to keep those to a minimum or they will affect sales which affects profits which affects dividends.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.