Elon Musk’s fame used to be a huge advantage for Tesla — but now it’s becoming a problem (TSLA)

The era of charismatic auto chiefs ended about a hundred years ago. Even then, Henry Ford wasn’t exactly the life of the party.

And while Enzo Ferrari and Gianni Agnelli symbolized a certain flamboyant Italian alternative to American industrialists and the culture of German engineering, not to mention the relatively low-key nature of Japanese automakers, the modern car company requires leadership that values execution. And as Musk has lately been admitting, extended periods of profitability.

Tesla has been around for 15 years, and a public company since 2010. It has never posted an annual profit. General Motors, on the other hand, returned to the public markets in 2010 after a bankruptcy — and has made over $70 billion.

Their market capitalizations are essentially the same: about $50 billion.

How much of that cap for Tesla has come from Musk’s megawatt-level celebrity? Probably some. Maybe a lot. Tesla routinely cites the “great man” risk in its official filings with the SEC, and the Tesla board voted on a new pay package for Musk that would make him mega-rich and take Tesla’s market cap to $650 billion. Clearly, they want to keep him around.

But here’s the problem. Celebrity Musk has been quite valuable in getting Tesla to this point. But ever since the catastrophe of the Model 3 launch — which began last year and still hasn’t been rectified — Musk’s flaws have been on display.

He’s not good at all when it comes to the basic blocking and tackling of mass-production. In fact, he seems to hate the whole idea of automotive best practices, preferring to reimagine vehicle production as a much more heavily robotic undertaking.

That didn’t work, and Tesla is paying the price while Musk is yet again being dragged back to the present from the future. He might be famous. But that isn’t going to get the Model 3’s rolling out the door.