Even Wall Street Has Had It With Elon Musk

With the exception of President Donald Trump, Elon Musk has alienated himself from pretty much everyone else on Earth. Looking at recent Wall Street trends, it would seem his investors are giving up on him too. Shares of Tesla jumped 84 percent following November's Presidential Election — peaking just days before Christmas — as investors assumed Musk's car company would benefit greatly from his involvement in the government.

Welp, that isn't exactly going to plan. In Musk's incredibly high-profile role as the head of the Department of Governmental Efficiency, he has tried to impose massive cuts to spending that had already been approved by Congress, and he's laid off thousands of federal employees. This has not gone over well with the general public, and now Teslas shares are down 40 percent from their peak after the markets closed on March 5, according to CNN. Shares have lost over a third of their value since Trump took office on January 20, meaning it has lost nearly 90 percent of its post-election bump.

Here's more on what might be causing this fairly massive selloff, from CNN:

The drop in share price probably reflects the concern that Musk has been much a more visible – and polarizing – figure in the Trump administration than he was expected to be immediately after the election. Many investors likely figured Musk would be a more traditional "behind the scenes" kind of adviser, not necessarily taking an active role in enacting controversial policies. Musk had enough other business interests, running companies ranging from Tesla to SpaceX to Neuralink to X, to keep him occupied.

But the drop in Tesla's value is also a sign of the headwinds the company is facing, in addition to increased competition from other automakers, especially those from China, who have made significant gains in their home market and in Europe as well.

Lest we forget that all of this is happening as global sales continue to tank — especially in Europe. Despite the fact European EV sales jumped 34 percent in January, Tesla sales fell 50 percent in that market. They also fell 29 percent in China, the Austin, Texas-based automaker's second-largest market after the U.S., in the first couple of months of 2025. That's, uh, not great.

It's hard to say what Tesla's U.S. sales are looking like right now, but between December and January, they dropped 16 percent, which isn't really what you want. Of course, there are many reasons for something like this to happen. Stuff like a production line changeover for the Model Y will certainly hurt sales, but even if operations were normal, it wouldn't make up for the damage Musk has done to his company's reputation.

You can tell Tesla is in a bit of a desperation mode right now. Just yesterday, we told you about how the automaker was offering 0 percent APR or $0 down financing deals on Model 3s to make up some sales. We also talked about how this sales dip could have the unintended effect of hurting Tesla's ability to sell off carbon credits. I'm sure it doesn't help that people viscerally hate the Cybertruck and what it stands for.