Two of the Culture War’s finest are squaring off.
In one corner, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. In the other corner, Tesla founder and current advisor to President Donald Trump, Elon Musk.
The battle? Musk’s directive that all federal workers send his made-up government agency, DOGE, an email outlining five things they did at work last week.
Portnoy, making one of his regular appearances on Fox Business Network’s Varney on Friday, turned the tables on Musk. The Barstool founder contends that Musk, and his newfound obsession of blitzkrieging U.S. institutions, has neglected his actual job as CEO of Tesla. And as a Tesla shareholder, Portnoy wasn’t happy.
“So I’m a big stockholder of Tesla and I certainly raise my eyebrows,” Portnoy began. “I like DOGE. I like what they’re doing. But let me tell you this. If you’re going to send out — and you got to call it both ways — if you’re going to send emails to federal workers and say, ‘What have you done for the last five days?’ I think Tesla shareholders are entitled to ask their CEO, Elon Musk, ‘What have you done for Tesla the last five days?’ I mean, it’s seemingly all he cares about right now is DOGE.”
The optics for Tesla shareholders look doubly bad when you look at the company’s stock price, which is down almost 28% in the past month.
“Now, it could be coincidence that the stock is down 25% since he really started this, I guess,” Portnoy continued. “But I think it’s fair, as a shareholder of Tesla, to say, ‘What are you doing for Tesla shareholders now?’ Maybe you’re greasing the wheels and you’ll get some deals through the government, I don’t know, but it’s certainly in-bounds to ask Elon Musk, ‘What are you doing for Tesla right now.'”
Musk has certainly proven himself more adept at running his electric vehicle company than advising the federal government, at least if you like Ebola protection programs to be funded.
Maybe Portnoy is right. Time to go back to serving the shareholders, and leave the governance to the elected officials.