Tesla's profits fell 71% over the first three months of this year, a company earnings release on Tuesday showed. The new financial details arrive as some shareholders have called on Musk -- whose temporary status as a government employee expires next month -- to step down from his White House role and return full-time to the helm of Tesla. Opening his company's earnings call on Tuesday, Musk defended the work he was doing with the Department of Government Efficiency and commented on the Tesla protests, saying, without evidence, that the protesters were demonstrating because they were “receiving fraudulent money.”