It’s the day earlier than Thanksgiving, and Tesla is in hassle. Share costs for the electrical carmaker are down greater than 50 % because the starting of the yr. And now, the corporate’s mercurial CEO, Elon Musk, is distracted by his shiny new $44 billion toy: Twitter.

Tesla has lengthy benefited from a sterling fame, each as a luxurious EV maker and an funding alternative. But points on the firm are racking up, and extra prospects and shareholders appear to be taking discover. In latest weeks, a number of posts critiquing Tesla’s construct high quality have caught consideration on social media, and a whole bunch of hundreds of Tesla automobiles have been hit with recollects. (Over-the-air updates will deal with issues with the autos’ tail lights and the entrance passenger airbag, two of the latest calls issued by the corporate.) So whereas Musk is busy placing out fires at Twitter — and working his different corporations, SpaceX, the Boring Firm, and Neuralink — Tesla’s fame appears to be taking successful.

Let’s begin with Musk himself. Within the wake of his Twitter acquisition, some consultants and analysts are involved that Musk’s new job may be undermining his obligations as CEO of Tesla and contributing to its cratering inventory worth. Take into account that Musk additionally financed a lot of his Twitter acquisition deal by promoting off his personal Tesla inventory, and likewise reportedly approved greater than 50 engineers from Tesla to work at Twitter when he took over final month. On the identical time, Tesla is at the moment going through a lawsuit that alleges that Musk’s compensation package deal in 2018 was inappropriately influenced by the Tesla board’s private ties to Musk. (The lawsuit additionally calls Musk a “part-time CEO.”) A number of lawsuits have been filed towards the corporate associated to its office, together with lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, racism, and a “poisonous” office tradition, over the previous yr or so.

The automobiles themselves are having issues, too. Construct high quality has been a constant criticism of Tesla, and a reliability research printed by Shopper Experiences this month discovered that the corporate continues to have points with its physique {hardware} and steering programs, amongst different points. Repairing Teslas stays a serious hurdle, as a Recode investigation illuminated this previous summer season. The problem is so vital that GM claimed in a latest investor presentation that its sellers had apparently repaired greater than 11,000 Tesla autos since final yr. A TikTok video documenting the construct high quality of 1 Tesla, together with a wobbling trunk lid, picked up greater than 4 million views earlier this month.

Steven Elek, a knowledge analyst for Shopper Experiences, mentioned in an announcement, “Construct high quality continues to be a problem for Tesla. In our newest reliability survey, homeowners reported issues with physique {hardware}, and paint and trim on the Mannequin S, Mannequin 3, and Mannequin Y. Tailgates that don’t shut correctly, unfastened trim and molding, and pale paint are a number of the particular defects we heard from Tesla homeowners.”

Then, there are Tesla’s recollects, which complete 19 because the starting of this yr (GM has issued 25, and Ford has issued 63, for reference, although they’ve additionally manufactured many extra automobiles). Along with the recollects final week, the corporate has additionally issued recollects to some autos over issues with their energy steering in November and different automobiles that would presumably ignore cease indicators in February.

Many of those recollects are issued with out the automobiles experiencing wide-ranging security issues, and so they don’t require bodily modifications to the automobiles. As a substitute, they’re dealt with by means of over-the-air updates, which permit Tesla to make the required repairs by means of, primarily, web downloads. These fixes are clearly simpler to finish than taking a car in for restore or changing one solely. Nonetheless, as Recode has beforehand defined, these sorts of recollects — as a result of they’re really easy to handle — might additionally create a cycle the place regulators are continuously racing to catch as much as harmful software program.

Tesla’s plan to turn out to be a self-driving automobile firm doesn’t appear to be going so effectively, both. Whilst different corporations again away from their autonomous car aspirations amid an financial downturn, Elon Musk continues to be touting Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving software program — a beta model of the corporate’s system is supposed to turn out to be out there to extra Tesla homeowners by the tip of this yr.

And now Tesla is going through one more lawsuit, filed in September by homeowners who say Musk has misled prospects about how far-off, and the way useful, this expertise is. The federal government has gotten concerned, too: Reuters reported in October that the Division of Justice is investigating Tesla’s expertise, and the Securities and Trade Fee has additionally launched a probe. On the identical time, an initiative known as the Daybreak Venture is looking for a ban on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software program. To assist that effort, the undertaking has launched movies and adverts meant to spotlight the hazards of Tesla’s expertise, together with a tv marketing campaign that reveals a Tesla flattening a baby model. The carmaker not too long ago despatched a stop and desist letter in response.

Oh, and Tesla’s rivals are beginning to pose extra of a risk. Whereas the corporate continues to be the darling of the rising EV business, corporations like Ford and GM are racing to get forward of Tesla and scale up their manufacturing. Startups like Lucid and Rivian are additionally attempting to beat Elon Musk’s automobiles within the luxurious market.

These corporations most likely don’t thoughts that Musk is at the moment spending his time reinstating Donald Trump’s Twitter account and posting memes, since they might use the time to catch up. As Recode editor Adam Clark Estes wrote when information of Musk’s acquisition was first introduced: “But when there ever was a time to get a head begin, it’s now. Tesla’s boss is away. Time to play.”

This story was first printed within the Recode publication. Join right here so that you don’t miss the subsequent one!