And GM isn't the only automaker with a stagnant stock price. Of the seven best-selling carmakers in the U.S., only Toyota and Fiat Chrysler have seen significant growth in seven years. Ford, Honda and Hyundai all have lost value.
"Investors and the financial markets are much more interested in investing in the potential of what might be huge than in the reality of what's already profitable and likely to remain so for years to come," says Sam Abuelsamid, a senior analyst with Navigant Research.
Abuelsamid says GM could better trumpet its technology achievements. For instance, it scarcely markets the Bolt. By contrast, Musk builds hype with nightclub-like events for Tesla owners and Twitter banter with 8.8 million followers.
"The only way you can get people to perceive you in the same light as a company like Tesla is to demonstrate it," Abuelsamid says.
Musk is crucial to Tesla's success. The risk-taking billionaire founded PayPal and rocket company SpaceX before taking over Tesla. He espouses big ideas like Hyperloop high-speed transportation and colonizing Mars.
Barra, on the other hand, is a methodical engineer who rarely strays from script. She has only 29,500 Twitter followers. She's a GM lifer who earned a company-paid MBA from Stanford; Musk left a Stanford graduate physics program after just two days to form a publishing startup.
"Mary is like a normal high-level performing executive," Ramsey says. "Elon Musk is like an almost unrivaled superstar, even in comparison to Silicon Valley executives."
GM have not produced one stand out car in at least a Decade
