SOTS 2nd Hour: More Turbulence for Telsa, New Tariff Deadline, Core AI Deal 7/7/25

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Carl Quintanilla (1:09)

Good Monday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Leslie Picker and Mike Santoli here at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Sara and David have the morning off, getting set up for a week. Not so much of earnings and data, but some trade deadlines as we work our way closer to that July 9th date. Dow's down about 18 basis points, Treasuries as well rising slightly 10 year above 435 Today, Tesla sits out the party though. Shares are sinking this morning as Elon Musk makes a U-turn back into politics. We'll talk about that and Evercore founder Roger Altman will be with us. His latest thoughts on the markets and the fast changing situation regarding tariffs in Washington.

Leslie Picker (1:47)

But first, we're 30 minutes into the trading session. Here are three big movers we are watching this morning. Molina Healthcare, the latest health insurer to lower its annual profit forecast due to medical cost pressures. The move follows Centene's decision last week to withdraw its own profit outlook. This morning, Molina down about 0.65 percent. CoreWeave says it is buying data center infrastructure company CoreScientific and an all stock transaction saying the deal will help CoreWeave, quote, future proof revenue growth and enhance profitability. Market not loving what it's seeing CoreScientific down 19 percent this morning. More details ahead. We mentioned Tesla, those shares sinking after Elon Musk said he would form a new political party called the America Party, which would focus on just two or three Senate seats in eight to ten house districts. Let's bring in Phil LaBone now with more on Tesla's pullback this morning. Phil, market doesn't love Elon Musk being distracted.

Phil LeBeau (2:48)

No, they don't. The market and by that we mean investors, they want Elon Musk to focus on Tesla. I think that's pretty clear as we've seen things play out over the last month, going back to his initial sparring with the president and then saying, okay, let's get past this. Tesla shares went back up. Now, they're under pressure again. That's because he posted on X that he would like to start or plans to start what's known as the American Party. It would be a third party and one of several posts that were on X over the weekend. He wrote by a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it. Well, investors would rather have him focus more exclusively on Tesla, especially after reports that he was going to be taking over, overseeing day to day operations more closely in Europe and in North America. And the shares had been rallying, but that is not the case this morning. There is one bit of good news if you're a Tesla investor. UK sales in June up 14%.

You combine this with China sales being up 1%, that report coming out last week, perhaps we're seeing a bottoming in terms of the fall off in sales internationally. Nonetheless, last week the company reported Q2 deliveries of 384,000 vehicles, 122, 384,122. Just a shy below the estimate, but I wouldn't really call it a miss. The estimate was for 387, but this is the focus that most believe Elon Musk should have when it comes to Tesla. Restoring deliveries, focusing on the RoboTaxi, Optimus, that's where the investors want them to go. In fact, Dan Ives out with a note today. Now, Dan Ives is perhaps the most bullish analyst on Wall Street when it comes to Tesla. He will tell you that things are going to get better, that Elon is the man when he's focused on Tesla. But he put out a note essentially saying, this is not what investors want. They don't want Elon Musk focusing on political activities or spending most of his time talking about politics and fighting with the president. He wrote Tesla needs Musk as CEO and its biggest asset and not heading down the political route yet again, while at the same time getting on Trump's bad side. No indication that this is getting on the president's bad side. The president responded by calling Elon's suggestion of a third party ridiculous. He says Elon is off the rails. But there was nothing by the president so far that is, hey, you keep coming at me, we're really going to take some action against Tesla. And that is the concern for investors.