By Tim Higgins

Listening to Elon Musk these days is to hear a man who feels unfairly treated.

And, as he skulks away from the White House with his tail between his legs, he is particularly thin skinned. Angry that he was cast as a Nazi. Angry that some used his politics as an excuse to attack Tesla. Angry that he's being scrutinized.

We've seen this before. Musk has always had an incredibly large chip on his shoulder -- one fueled by perceived slights and personal grievances, critics expressing disbelief and the chorus of social-media doubters.

But history has shown that it can unleash something fierce: Angry Elon. Like the Incredible Hulk busting out of his britches and turning green, Musk goes silent before exploding. These days, Musk again seems to be fuming, his eyes darting upward, his vision clouded red with anger.

And Angry Elon could be a very good thing for Tesla investors. It can focus him on executing, on proving everyone wrong. A Musk that executes can go to outer space, can make electric cars mainstream.

But investors haven't seen Musk execute in a while.

Instead, they've seen promises of a cheap Tesla that would fuel 20 million annual vehicle sales seemingly abandoned. They've seen the Cybertruck flop. They've seen profitability shrink and sales fall for the first time in more than a decade.

Worrisome stuff to investors concerned Musk has been too distracted in Washington. Even board members appeared unnerved.

But fans remembering the power of Angry Elon drew hope from signs this past week that he might be back. First, via video link to a conference in Qatar, Musk on Tuesday delivered salty answer after salty answer to concerns about the state of his companies.

Asked when he might be able to turn things around at Tesla, the chief executive replied, "It's already turned around."

Musk's proof point? Essentially, the age-old retort by Tesla fans on social media: The stock price, bro!

Since announcing on April 22 that he would pare back his time in the Trump administration, Tesla shares have risen 43%. This returned the automaker to the rarefied status of being valued at slightly more than $1 trillion. Overall, those shares are still down both 11% year-to-date and 29% from an all-time high.

Analysts estimate Tesla unit sales will finish the year down from 2024. This is a reversal from just a few months ago when they expected year-over-year gains.

Musk's vision for the future of Tesla isn't bothered by the boring part of selling electric vehicles. Instead, his future is all about ushering in a new era of robotics -- driverless cars and humanoid robots.

For roughly a decade, he has said the day was near for Tesla's autonomous vehicles. Meanwhile, Alphabet's Waymo and Amazon.com's Zoox have put fully autonomous cars on public roads.

On Tuesday, Musk doubled down in a second public appearance, this time on CNBC, reaffirming that Tesla is on track to begin offering driverless cars in Austin, Texas, by the end of June.

The plan, he said, is to begin with probably 10 vehicles on the road in the first week, then increase that figure by tens of vehicles each week and probably reach 1,000 within a few months. He added that there would probably be hundreds of thousands of autonomous Tesla vehicles by the end of next year, if not more than one million.

It's the kind of ultra-ambitious targets he has promoted before. He just needs to execute.

During the CNBC interview, his recent track record in Washington was questioned and he snapped again: "Why are you attacking this, given that we've made so much progress?"

Even as he defended his DOGE efforts, Musk has begun amplifying the idea that he is stepping back from politics after realizing the Republican-controlled Congress lacks the appetite to implement spending reductions. "I have come to the perhaps obvious conclusion that accelerating GDP growth is essential," he posted Friday. " @DOGE has and will do great work to postpone the day of bankruptcy of America, but the profligacy of government means that only radical improvements in productivity can save our country."

And robots are his solution.

Seeing glimpses of Angry Elon excites supporters the same way Optimistic Elon did almost a year ago at the Tesla annual meeting. His enthusiasm -- dancing around on stage -- seemed to signal he was dialed in after more than a year of distractions from buying Twitter.

After shareholders re-approved his massive pay package, Musk stood on stage painting a bright Tesla future filled with humanoid robots and driverless cars. He suggested that could drive the company's valuation to more than $30 trillion.

Now, supporters are hoping Angry Elon is ready to finally deliver.

"War time Elon is activated," a popular X account called Autism Capital posted in response to Musk's Qatar appearance. Others crowed something similar. "Elon is in WAR TIME CEO mode," a MAGA social-media account posted Wednesday. "He is done playing around. Total laser focus on execution."

Tesla was founded on a rather unlikely idea of making EVs cool and mainstream. For much of its existence, Tesla has faced criticism that it couldn't succeed. And Musk was out there selling investors and customers on the idea that the vision was, in fact, possible.

He just needed to execute. And once he did, it was a real game-changer. Tesla hit its stride in late 2019 and 2020, becoming consistently profitable and cementing Musk's image as one of the most successful entrepreneurs of a generation.

Of course, past success isn't a guarantee of future success.

Even Tesla's position as the global leader of electric vehicles is under threat from Chinese rivals, such as BYD. It outsold the U.S. EV maker in Europe for the first time last month.

Musk, who has long praised his Chinese competitors, claimed he wasn't following the sales race. "I don't really think about competitors," Musk said on CNBC. "I just think about making the products as perfect as possible."

He just needs to execute.