What’s behind Tesla’s post-election stock slump?
It’s only Monday, and already Tesla’s not having a great week. Again.
That’s been a theme pretty much all year. The electric vehicle giant’s stock price has nearly been cut in half after it reached an all-time high in mid-December. Now it’s sitting right about where it was in November, meaning it’s lost just about all its post-presidential election hype.
This isn’t an EV market problem. It’s an Elon Musk problem, said climate economist Gernot Wagner at Columbia Business School.
“What’s happening here, you can probably explain through the politics and the optics,” said Wagner.
Wagner said Tesla stock exploded after the November election because of Elon Musk’s proximity to President Donald Trump.
“That proximity has not turned into Tesla sales, at least not yet, and maybe never,” said Wagner.
So EV drivers are buying other cars. Equity strategist Seth Goldstein at Morningstar Research said that’s not just because of politics.
“We’re seeing increased competition,” said Goldstein. “Other automakers are now offering comparable long-range vehicles at a similar price point.”
On top of all that, the Trump administration has brought with it some bad news for a huge piece of Tesla’s business.
“Tesla has one less very serious revenue source, which is selling credits,” said Gil Tal, the director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at University of California, Davis.
Tal said Tesla — one of the cleanest automakers — sells carbon credits to its more pollutive colleagues so they can meet state regulations and those imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA regulation is now in question.
“By canceling the EPA regulation and so on, they’re just directly canceling this market,” said Tal.
That would be bad news, when credits make up more than a third of Tesla’s business.
Moreover, Tesla’s sales are cratering in Europe, and there have been protests against the company here and abroad because of Elon Musk’s political involvements.
This summer is going to be a major test for Tesla’s future, said Jessica Caldwell with Edmunds.
“People that buy stock in Tesla, it’s almost like a dream as to what is going to happen. Is Tesla going to dominate the robotaxi field? Because we know who does that is going to be an extremely profitable company,” said Caldwell.
Whether Tesla dominates the field will depend on whether it makes good on its promise to have autonomous vehicles on the road starting in June.