Tesla is the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 this year (opens in new tab)

I think the theory is that without Musk, people might start valuing it as a car company, rather than a magic future company what was going to release self-driving farting flamethrower robots any day now. For all that it hasn't performed well this year, Tesla's valuation is still much higher than one would naively expect.

Amazon's a fairly different situation; no-one's really valuing Amazon on the basis that it might suddenly start doing something completely different and magical.

Musk is a great CEO because he is free marketing. Tesla would be a fraction of its size without musk, not because of technical merits, but because the general public loves (or atleast loved) his wacky personality and his links with high tech. The "elon musk is a real-life iron man" statement was a thing before tesla's rise during covid. Personally I think he got trapped with self-bullshit and that allowed cracks to peel through. Had he been less open about politics and stuck with generic memes, tesla would have still been on the rise.