Tesla Value Tanks So Hard It's Not Even Elon Musk's Most Valuable Asset Anymore

Good morning! It's Wednesday, March 19, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you'll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning's edition, we're looking at Elon Musk's assets, how exciting, and checking in with a disgruntled Tesla shareholder who thinks it's well past time for Musk to step down from the automaker. We'll also talk about how Japan's automakers are preparing for the worst of the tariff war and check in with Audi's plan to launch its last gas-powered model in 2026.

Another day, another update on the dire state of things at American automaker Tesla. After witnessing its first decline in sales for almost a decade last year, being subject to attacks on its dealerships and getting hit with numerous calls for boycotts as a result of company boss Elon Musk's work gutting the U.S. government, Tesla's misfortunes are finally coming back to hit musk where it hurts: his wallet.

Well, his enormous wealth, to be specific, as the free-falling stock price at Tesla now means that Musk's share in the automaker is worth less than his stake in SpaceX for the first time in more than five years, reports the Guardian. The price of shares in Tesla fell from its high of almost $480 per share in December to around $225 per share at the time of writing. This hit Musk's stake in the company, which is now worth around $127 billion and is less than his $147 billion stake in SpaceX:

Tesla has come under stark pressure on the market since Donald Trump's inauguration, as it became clear that much of Musk's attention is on his work at the so-called "department of government efficiency" (Doge), and the new administration's tariff policies injected uncertainty into the economy. Shares in Tesla sank 5.4% on Tuesday, as Wall Street continued to struggle. The benchmark S&P 500 index closed down 1.1%.

While Tesla's value is in free fall, Musk is doing little to reassure investors that he has a plan to turn around fortunes at the automaker. In fact, the billionaire admitted last week that he was having "great difficulty" juggling his work gutting government services with his commitments to Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter X.

Despite this admission, Musk is still preparing to head to court to defend the $56 billion pay package that he thinks he's worth for running Tesla in his spare time. Right.

Enough might just be enough for some Tesla investors, however, as Musk's AWOL nature at the company is leading to calls for his departure from some investors. Tesla backer Ross Gerber went public with his calls for Musk's departure Tuesday, arguing that his "time has become too stretched" to effectively run the automaker.

Gerber appeared on British TV network Sky yesterday, where he told reporters that Musk had "lost his focus" on the automaker, and added that his extracurricular activities, like slashing U.S. AID funding and promoting far-right ideas, had become "divisive," as Sky News adds:

"It's time for somebody to run Tesla. The business has been neglected for too long. There are too many important things Tesla is doing, so either Elon should come back to Tesla and be the CEO of Tesla and give up his other jobs or he should focus on the government and keep doing what he is doing but find a suitable CEO of Tesla."

The early Tesla investor added that the automaker was in "crisis" with Musk at the helm, after sales fell and demand dropped off in key markets like Europe and California, where buyers are seeking to distance themselves from Musk's far-right turn.

On top of the problems of its own making, Tesla is also facing stiff competition around the world from Chinese automakers, with BYD now the world's top-selling EV maker, and legacy automakers have launched compelling electric options of their own that are eating away at Tesla's sales.

Right, no more Tesla talk now! Let's move onto the next "T" word of the moment: tariffs. President Donald Trump slapped all kinds of tariffs on imports into America since taking office in an attempt to stop drugs coming into the country and address America's trade deficit, apparently.

Tariffs have been threatened on automotive imports as well as essential components like steel and aluminum. Now, automakers in Japan are warning that there could be "significant" production cutbacks should such measures come into force next month, reports Automotive News.

Import duties of 25 percent are set to hit automotive shipments into the U.S. from April 2. The fees will hit automakers like Nissan, Toyota and Honda which assemble models both here in the U.S. and overseas. If the tariffs come into effect, experts warn that "production adjustments" will be on the cards for automakers to remain competitive:

"If this were to happen on April 2, we could expect a significant production adjustment," Katayama said at Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association's monthly news conference. "If production has be adjusted, where would the damage be done, and how should we take care of it?"

Japan is reportedly considering counter measures should the 25 percent tariffs on automotive imports come into force, adds Automotive News. So far, lawmakers in the country haven't confirmed what those measures could look like, but in Europe new fees will be imposed on American products from Harley-Davidson motorcycles to bourbon whiskey.

If all that political turmoil isn't enough to give you a headache this morning, then the flip-flopping of Audi's commitment to electrification may finish you off. The German automaker previously said it would launch its final gas-powered car in 2026, but backtracked on that aim becoming the latest automaker to scale down its electrification.

Instead of going all-in on electrification from the next decade, Audi now says it will invest in hybrid power as a stepping stone to a fully-electric lineup, which I guess will come at some point in the future. The move comes as Audi struggled to ramp up its EV sales around the world, explains Autocar:

"For all global regions, we are going to take a look at the life of combustion engines," Audi CEO Gernot Döllner said. "2032 was the date we had communicated, but we have to reassess those dates and deadlines."

The transition away from gas power will now be much slower for Audi, adds the site, with the lifespan of Audi's gas cars set to extend and form the basis of its new hybrid models. The move follows similar softening of electric ambitions for the likes of Porsche and Ford.

In the past year alone, automakers around the world have scaled back their ambitions for electric cars, cutting more than 4 million EVs from their sales targets over the coming years.

Do you ever just completely miss an album from a band you once loved? I did that with Paramore's 2017 album "After Laughter" and I'm not really sure how. The band's latest, "This Is Why", is great and I liked all their earlier stuff, but "After Laughter" just completely passed me by somehow.

That was, until I saw them live last year and they whipped out some absolute bops that I'd not heard before. It turns out they were all from this record, and it's great. So today, I'm righting the wrong of missing out on it for about seven years and listening to it again, which is probably something you should also do.