Tesla (TSLA) heads for 9th straight red week, its longest losing streak ever

Tesla is heading into its ninth straight weekly loss, making this its longest losing streak in history. The drop started early this year and hasn’t stopped.

As of this week, shares are down 42% in 2025, wiping out every gain the company made after the presidential election. That’s according to data tracked through Thursday’s close.

The stock fell again on Thursday, dipping by as much as 2.5% after Tesla said it was recalling 46,000 Cybertrucks. The issue was tied to a cosmetic panel on the truck’s exterior, which could boost crash risks. The company filed the recall with U.S. regulators and notified owners directly.

Schlossberg says Tesla’s fall isn’t over

Speaking Thursday on CNBC’s Power Lunch, Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, said the stock hasn’t bottomed out yet. He said Tesla is still being priced like a futuristic tech company, even though it hasn’t delivered what’s been promised for years.

“Tesla has further to fall,” Boris said. “It has been treated as a tech fantasy on autonomous driving. But the longer it takes to crack autonomous driving, the more the market will treat it like a regular car company.”

Boris said the company’s whole value rests on hopes of full autonomy. If that doesn’t happen soon, traders and institutions will stop pricing in tech-style growth and will start treating it like a carmaker with tight margins.

“Valuation and everything else at Tesla is really dependent upon this dream of autonomous driving,” Boris said. “Until they actually achieve it, [the stock] could be rerated as purely a core car company. And the car business is a tough business — it has much lower multiples than Tesla is getting — so there’s so much more compression to go in Tesla, unless it really achieves a breakthrough. So at this point, I think it’s really not a buy.”

Boris also mentioned other companies during that segment. He said he’s currently holding Five Below, the discount retailer. When asked about Cava, a Mediterranean fast-casual chain, Boris said, “Love the business, hate the stock.” That came just hours before JPMorgan issued an upgrade on Cava, telling investors to buy the stock following its recent pullback.

Back on Wall Street, traders weren’t in the mood to buy anything. On Thursday, the S&P 500 lost 0.2%, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.3%, and the Dow slipped just over 11 points. That weakness rolled straight into Friday morning. Futures for all major indexes were down, with the S&P 500 off 0.41%, Dow futures down 180 points, and the Nasdaq 100 sliding 0.46%.

Musk talks to employees as FBI investigates sabotage

While investors watch the price charts, things behind the scenes are also getting weird. Late Thursday night, Elon Musk called a surprise all-hands meeting at Tesla’s Austin factory, where he spoke directly to employees. The meeting ran past 10 p.m. local time and was live-streamed on X, the social media platform Musk owns.

Elon told employees to stay calm and hold onto their stock. “If you read the news, it feels like Armageddon,” he said during the live meeting. “I can’t walk past a TV without seeing a Tesla on fire. I understand if you don’t want to buy our product, but you don’t have to burn it down.”

He was talking about a string of attacks and fires at Tesla charging stations and dealerships. The FBI is investigating incidents in Las Vegas, Kansas City, and Missouri, where equipment was set on fire or damaged. So far, no arrests have been made. No suspects have been named either.

This wasn’t some PR stunt. Elon looked serious. He tried to reassure workers while also pushing them to stay focused. “There are times when there are rocky moments, a little bit of stormy weather but I’m here to tell you the future is bright and exciting,” he said.

The outside noise isn’t helping either. Donald Trump, now in his second term as president, said this week that he’s buying a Tesla himself. He even brought a bunch of Tesla EVs to the White House South Lawn. There was no official event—just a drive-up and photo op. Nothing else was announced.

Then came the interview on Fox News with Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Commerce Secretary. He told viewers to buy Tesla stock while it’s cheap. “It’ll never be this cheap again,” Howard said on live TV. That led to questions about whether his comments broke federal conflict of interest rules, since government officials aren’t supposed to promote individual companies publicly.

On the macro side, traders are still trying to process the latest Fed update. On Wednesday, Fed policymakers confirmed two rate cuts are still on the table for 2025. But at the same time, they raised their inflation forecast and lowered their GDP growth expectations. That combo is causing some investors to worry about stagflation—where inflation keeps rising but the economy slows down. Fed Chair Jerome Powell also said that Trump’s tariff policies could delay progress on inflation.

That inflation warning has already hit stocks hard. The Nasdaq is still sitting more than 10% below its recent peak, which qualifies as correction territory. The S&P 500 briefly dipped into correction last week too. Even so, there are some small bright spots on the indexes. The S&P 500 is still on pace to finish the week up 0.4%. The Dow is heading for a 1.1% gain, which would be its best weekly performance since January. But the Nasdaq? It’s down 0.4% for the week and is about to finish its fifth straight red week, the worst run since May 2022.

As for Tesla, this ninth straight red week could easily stretch into a tenth if something doesn’t change fast. The Cybertruck recall, the sabotage incidents, the valuation pressure, and the autonomy delays are all crashing into the stock at once. The hype isn’t working anymore. Investors are looking for results, not livestreams.

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