As U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war on Canada and other allies sends the stock market spiralling, many businesses have been badly affected — and Elon Musk’s Tesla has not been spared.
The electric vehicle company’s stock has tumbled about 18 per cent over the last week, from $272.78 (U.S.) on March 5 to $222.15 on Monday’s close. The stock rebounded slightly to $227.52 by midday Tuesday.
The free fall comes as protesters have organized “Tesla Takedown” nationwide protests in recent days against Musk and his businesses, which include SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla.
There might be a few reasons for the drop. The broader market declined Monday amid hints of a possible recession amid the ongoing U.S.-Canada tariffs.
Controversy has also been swirling around Musk ever since he flashed what has been widely interpreted as a Nazi salute at an inauguration event for Trump in January. Numerous auto industry analysts have also attributed the sagging stock — and auto sales — to Musk’s support of Trump and other far right candidates around the world.
Musk has also vowed to eliminate or shrink entire federal offices in his senior White House adviser role with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk is running his companies “with great difficulty,” he told Fox Business in an interview on Monday. The same day, he assured shareholders that Tesla would “be fine long term.”
Musk saw his net worth drop $29 billion that day, but he remains the wealthiest person in the world, exceeding the net worths of Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Early Tuesday morning, Trump said he would buy a Tesla as a show of support.
“Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.”
Meanwhile X faced a barrage of outages due to cyberattacks on Monday.
“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” he wrote on the site Monday. “Either a large, co-ordinated group and/or a country is involved.”
Since purchasing the site for $44 billion in 2022, Musk has erased 80 per cent of its value, Fidelity estimated.
With files from the Associated Press
