Investors turn on Elon Musk as Tesla’s stock crashes by over 40%

Tesla’s TSLA stock, which surged 91% after President Donald Trump’s re-election, has collapsed by 44% since hitting an all-time high of $479.86 on December 17, according to data from Google Finance.

Now trading at $302.80, Tesla is losing billions in market value, and shareholders are questioning Elon Musk’s leadership.

Tesla disappoints investors as deliveries fall and probes increase

TSLA had been riding high on Musk’s close friendship with Trump, which had investors betting that regulatory advantages would help Tesla expand its autonomous and self-driving business.

For the first time in the company’s history, Tesla’s annual deliveries dropped year over year—a huge red flag for a company that has always pushed growth as its core narrative. But that was just the beginning of the bad news.

Earlier in January, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched another investigation into Tesla’s self-driving technology. This investigation followed many existing probes into Autopilot-related crashes.

At the same time, the much-hyped Cybertruck—which was supposed to revolutionize the pickup market—is already being discounted.

In Europe, sales have collapsed, with German sales down 60% since early 2024. Meanwhile, Tesla’s China business is under attack, losing market share to BYD, which now dominates the country’s EV market. Tesla’s China sales have dropped 22% year-over-year as Chinese consumers increasingly turn to domestic brands, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

Regulatory scrutiny is also getting worse in Berlin, Germany, where authorities are reviewing Tesla’s Gigafactory operations. Musk’s public support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has led to protests and boycotts, damaging Tesla’s brand in one of its largest European markets.

Instead of addressing production issues, supply chain concerns, and falling sales, Musk has been busy pushing his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which ironically now requires government employees to submit weekly reports on their productivity.

This project has nothing to do with Tesla, yet it’s consuming Musk’s time while Tesla’s stock craters. Meanwhile, Trump’s “America First” trade policies are adding to the uncertainty.

The administration’s plans to impose 60% tariffs on Chinese goods could worsen Tesla’s position in China, which is actually already a declining market for the company.

Interestingly, Tesla’s stock decline is mirroring Bitcoin’s current sell-off. Barclays analyst Dan Levy pointed out that Tesla’s meteoric rise last November wasn’t based on fundamentals but rather on market hype and technical trading factors.

“Bitcoin has also traded down since mid-December and has largely mirrored Tesla’s decline in the last month. We believe this may reflect a general pull-back from speculative assets/Trump beneficiaries,” Levy said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.

Levy also pointed out that Tesla’s recent underperformance aligns with a broader decline among big tech stocks, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta. But Tesla’s drop has been steeper than the rest, raising concerns that the company is facing bigger headwinds than its peers.

Levy doesn’t expect the near-term picture for Tesla to get much better, calling the stock’s short-term catalyst path “limited” and expecting “soft” first-quarter results. The analyst added that he was growing increasingly bearish about Tesla’s ability to improve profit margins, but expects the planned launch of the Robotaxi in Austin, Texas, in June to be a major catalyst for the stock.

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