When Elon Musk recently announced that he was retiring from politics, investors hoped that this would mean that he would now devote more time to the many technology companies he runs.
His explosive feud with President Donald Trump – and very public airing of his dirty laundry in the White House – suggest that Musk’s shift in priorities may not be the salve they had hoped for.
Instead of Musk stepping back from the public eye and focusing on increasing his capital in Tesla and other businesses, he is currently facing threats to boycott one of his biggest customers – Trump's federal government.
Tesla shares went into freefall on Thursday — down 14 percent — when he began lashing out at President Donald Trump on social media.
They recovered a bit on Friday after some indications that passions had calmed down a bit.
Still, for investors and analysts who have made it clear for months that they want Musk to put down his phone and get back to work, the situation is far from ideal.
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'Tesla is far behind'
Some, however, argue that the problems of Musk's companies go much deeper than this feud - and his controversial role in the Trump administration, which she spectacularly ended.
For seasoned technology journalist Kara Swisher, this is especially true for Tesla.
"Tesla has finished its work," she told the BBC on the sidelines of the San Francisco Media Summit earlier this week.
"It was a great car company. It could compete in the field of automated taxis, but now it's far behind."
Tesla has long been trying to catch up with rival Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, whose driverless taxis have been cruising the streets of San Francisco for years - and are now present in several other cities.
This month, Musk was scheduled to oversee the launch of a new contingent of automated robo-taxis in Austin, Texas.
He wrote on X last week that the electric vehicle manufacturer is testing a Model Y without a driver in the vehicle.
"I believe 90 percent of Tesla's future value will be automated vehicles and robotics," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told the BBC last week, adding that the Austin launch would be a "real milestone."
"The first task ahead is to ensure that the automation vision gets off to a phenomenal start," Ives added.
But with Musk torn apart, the project's chances of success appear to have diminished.
And there's something else to consider: Musk's own motivation.
Lately, the talk in Silicon Valley has been less about whether Musk can turn things around and more about whether he even cares.
"He's a very powerful person when he puts his mind to something," says Ross Gerber, president and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management.
"It used to be about proving to the world that they were going to build electric vehicles – a technology that no one else could build. The point was to prove that they could build rockets. They had a lot to prove."
A longtime Tesla investor, Gerber lost interest in the stock and began reducing his stake in the company after Musk's foray into right-wing politics.
He called Thursday "a very painful day."
"That's the dumbest thing you can do - to think you're more powerful than the president of the United States," Gerber said, referring to Musk's tirade against Trump on social media.
The BBC reached out to X, Tesla and SpaceX seeking comment from Musk, but did not receive a response.
'Tesla takedown'
A particular problem for Musk is that, before he seemingly turned Donald Trump into an enemy, he already had one in a grassroots social media campaign against his automaker.
Protests, dubbed #TeslaTakedown, have been taking place across the country every weekend since Trump took office.
In April, Tesla reported a 20 percent drop in car sales in the first three months of the year.
Profits fell by more than 70 percent, and stock prices along with it.
"He shouldn't be deciding our country's democracy by taking our government apart piece by piece. That's not right," protester Linda Koistinen told me in February at a protest outside Tesla's showroom in Berkeley, California.
Koistinen said she wanted to express "visible opposition" to Musk personally.
"Ultimately, this is not about technology or Tesla Corporation," said Joan Donovan, a prominent disinformation researcher who is a co-organizer of the #TeslaTakedown protest on social media.
"It's about the way Tesla's actions could be used against people and how they put Musk in a position to have enormous power without any transparency," Donovan added.
Another aspect of Musk's empire that has angered his critics is X, the social networking platform formerly known as Twitter.
"He bought Twitter to exert influence and so he could - whenever he wanted - reach hundreds of millions of people," Donovan said.
Personal brand
Here, however, there is another possibility.
Could Musk's highly visible rift with Trump help rehabilitate him in the eyes of people who turned against him because of his previous closeness to the president?
Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst for Moor Insights & Strategies, thinks it could.
"We are a forgiving country," Moorhead says in a phone interview.
"It takes time," he admits, "but it's happened before."
Swisher compared Musk's personal brand to that of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates from more than two decades ago.
Gates was once considered the "Darth Vader of Silicon Valley" due to his "arrogant and rude" personality.
Today, despite his flaws, Gates has largely rehabilitated his image.
"He's learned. He's grown. People change," Swisher told me, though "obviously not everything is right" with Musk right now.
Space exit
The problem for Musk is that the future for him and his companies is not just what he does – it's what Trump decides.
And while Trump has needed Musk in the past, especially to finance his presidential run, it's not exactly obvious that he needs him now.
Noah Smith, author of Noapinion Subtech, says Trump's lucrative foray into cryptocurrencies — however inappropriate — may have freed the president from his dependence on Musk and allowed him to do what he wants.
"My guess is that he did it to free himself from Musk's influence," Smith says.
In Trump's most ominous comment of the day, he suggested terminating Musk's government contracts, which are estimated to be worth $38 billion.
A significant portion of them is going to Musk's rocket company SpaceX – seemingly jeopardizing its future.
However, despite the great noise, Trump's threat may be emptier than it seems.
That's because SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft transports people and cargo to the International Space Station, where three NASA astronauts are currently stationed.
This shows that SpaceX has so entangled itself in the American space apparatus and national security that it would be difficult to carry out Trump's threat.
You could use the same argument for Musk's internet satellite company Starlink.
It's easier to threaten to find an alternative than to actually do it.
But if there are limits to what Trump can do, the same is true for Musk.
In the midst of his clash with Trump, he threatened to deactivate Dragon – but it wasn't long before he retracted that statement.
Responding to user X's suggestion to "chill out a bit," he wrote, "Good advice. Okay, we won't deactivate Dragon."
It is obvious that Musk and Trump's friendship is over.
It is less certain whether the same is true for their mutual dependence.
Whatever the future holds for Musk's companies, it seems that Trump - and the actions of his administration - will continue to have a major impact on them.
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