(TNND) — Elon Musk is looking to reinvigorate Tesla sales, admitting in an earnings call that the electric car company has suffered "blowback" from his work with President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting task force.

Musk, Tesla’s CEO, told investors that he’s going to scale back his DOGE activities to spend more time with Tesla, which suffered a 9% year-over-year decline in sales and a 71% decrease in profits during the first quarter.

Musk said during the earnings call this week that Tesla is no stranger to “near-death experiences.”

But he tried reassuring stakeholders, “This is not one of those times. We're not on the ragged edge of death. Not even close.”

And he said he remains optimistic about Tesla’s future despite expected challenges.

Chinese EV maker BYD has passed Tesla in global sales, but Tesla remains the dominant maker for the U.S. market.

Tesla owns over 40% of the U.S. market for EV sales, though it peaked about two years ago.

“Obviously, the controversies over Musk have been taking a lot of the oxygen out of the room,” said Sean Tucker, lead editor for Kelley Blue Book. “But if you imagine for a moment that you could remove that, imagine that Tesla had a non-controversial CEO. The problem you run into is that we went back and looked at Tesla sales. They actually peaked in February of 2023 and have been on the way down ever since.”

The DOGE controversies aren’t the only headwinds for Tesla.

RELATED STORY: What's DOGE going to be with less Elon Musk? 'Probably nothing'

There’s more competition in the EV market.

And Tucker said Tesla has an aging lineup.

“A lot of these cars are built on relatively older platforms,” he said. “And they're getting cosmetic updates, but they're not getting heavy technology updates.”

Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, also said Tesla has found itself with an aging model line.

Gordon said Tesla investors haven’t been happy with the way Musk has been spending his time lately.

The plummet in profits might be the wake-up call for Musk that investors have been looking for, he said.

Gordon said Musk’s work with DOGE has, indeed, tarnished Tesla’s brand.

“There are people who liked Tesla because it was electric and viewed as green who are politically opposed to most of what he did at DOGE,” Gordon said.

But Gordon said Musk’s unique ability to create a sense of urgency and see things others don’t could breathe new life into Tesla.

And he said a rumored sub-$30,000 model would do wonders for the company.

Tucker said that a potentially cheaper model is the biggest question about Tesla right now.

“There has been an awful lot of conflicting information about whether that exists and what it is, if it does exist,” Tucker said. “The latest reports say it's probably a stripped-down version of the Model Y or the Model 3, maybe running on a lighter battery technology that ... allows for lesser range.”

But Tucker said even a sub-$30,000 model isn’t likely to help Tesla regain its heights from a couple of years ago.

“They have some interesting attributes that maybe attract people, but they're not the obvious answer if you’re car shopping the way that they were four or five years ago,” Tucker said.

The overall EV market is still growing, but it's growing at a slower rate.

Prices, charging infrastructure and range are still the biggest concerns for potential EV buyers, Tucker said.

“All three are gradually getting better, but not necessarily fast enough for everyone,” he said.

The typical new EV costs close to $60,000.

And Cox Automotive, the parent company of KBB, says the EV price premium over gas-powered cars is about $12,000, the highest it’s been in a couple of years.

“The big question on everybody's mind is what happens with the $7,500 federal EV tax credit?” Tucker said. “Trump has said that he would like to eliminate it. It would take an act of Congress to eliminate it. We don't know that he could. If he could, that's going to change things dramatically, because everything gets $7,500 more expensive.”

Both men said Tesla also must deal with Trump’s tariffs, which they said impact all car makers.

Tucker said Tesla is less impacted by tariffs, because Tesla has more American-made parts.

But even Tesla has foreign-made parts. Tucker said Tesla, in particular, uses a lot of Chinese interior parts.

“So, there's just no way around it having an impact on them, just probably less than it does on many other competitors,” he said.

And clouding Tesla’s future is Musk’s interests in endeavors other than making EVs.

“Before his attention drifted away, Musk was starting to say that Tesla's not a car company anymore and that its future is not in building cars, it's in selling automation software, it’s in robots, it's in that sort of thing,” Tucker said.