Tesla’s share price drop has deflated its lofty valuation that now leaves bearish and bullish analysts alike focusing on the company’s need to rebuild demand for its vehicles, to seek potentially billions of dollars of new financing and to return to profitability after a huge loss in first-quarter 2019.

CEO Elon Musk shifted attention during his latest earnings call on April 25 toward his new goal of putting 1 million autonomous-driving taxis on the road by 2020, rather than how to solve the company’s weakening vehicle demand, thinning cash position and sagging financial performance. However, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) literally may have found a way to move forward by reaching an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to set ground rules for the kinds of tweets and public statements Musk can make without requiring prior approval from a securities lawyer.

Musk’s remarks during his earnings call about exploring the launch of an autonomous-driving, “robo-taxi” service caused some analysts to question whether he was becoming distracted from addressing challenges in Tesla’s core business. Musk, an unconventional, maverick CEO, broke with tradition by starting his remarks on April 24 to discuss first-quarter 2019 by talking about Tesla’s “first ever Autonomy Investor Day” two days earlier that showcased its in-house design of a computer to support autonomous driving and use Artificial Intelligence (AI) based software.

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Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce,Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is the editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. Follow Paul on Twitter@PaulDykewicz.