BEAR MARKET — You wouldn’t know it from the frenetic, high profile he currently cuts in Washington, but tech mogul Elon Musk has lost more than $100 billion in net worth since mid-December. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election, the share price of the high-flying electric car company he leads, Tesla, climbed to a high of roughly $480 per share. But it has since cratered to under $300. Shares dropped another 4 percent today, to close at $290.80 per share. For Musk, the world’s richest man and Tesla’s largest shareholder, those are just paper losses. He owns and runs several other companies — among them SpaceX, Twitter, and artificial intelligence startup xAI — so Tesla’s recent decline is just a flesh wound. But the largely parallel timeline between Tesla’s nosedive and Musk’s rise as something akin to a co-president, charged with slashing the size of the federal government and given free rein to weigh in on foreign policy, is raising a question on Wall Street and among many shareholders: How much is Musk’s polarizing run atop the Department of Government Efficiency damaging Tesla’s share price and brand? It’s not something that’s easily quantified. There are lots of factors that account for the declining share price. An unusual earnings miss for the last quarter of 2024, marked by lower-than-expected car-related sales and profit margins, dinged the stock. The company experienced its first-ever annual decline in vehicle deliveries last year. It’s facing stiffer competition for electric vehicles, particularly from China. The frothiness of the share price had already led many to question its sky-high valuation long before Musk took a battle axe to the federal government and went to war with European leaders. Still, it’s hard to discount the role Tesla’s CEO is playing in the stock’s free fall. Tesla remains the best selling EV on the market in the United States. A liberal Tesla owner, in fact, is a well trodden trope; in 2023, over two times as many Democrats as Republicans owned an electric vehicle, according to the research firm Strategic Visions. But as Musk began to espouse more conservative opinions in public, that gap began to shrink; by early 2024, Republicans began making up a larger share of new Tesla owners. It has become increasingly difficult for people on the left to proudly own a Tesla. According to polling released by the left-leaning research firm Data for Progress last week, 59 percent of Democrats report that Elon Musk has made them much less likely to buy a Tesla. That’s compared to only 15 percent of Republicans. Anecdotal evidence backs up those numbers. An Etsy seller told The New York Times in December that he’d sold over 18,000 bumper stickers that read “I bought this before I knew Elon was crazy,” presumably to be affixed onto the Teslas of regretful liberal owners. In D.C., where the federal job cuts are being felt acutely, a Tesla owner is printing up similar bumper stickers that read “Up with EVs, down with Elon,” and giving them out to friends and family. There’s now a robust online market for all kinds of versions of these anti-Musk messages that owners are supposed to affix to his cars. In recent weeks, liberals have also taken to protesting outside Tesla showrooms across the country. They are complaining, in large part, not about the car but about what they see as Musk’s takeover of the federal government. But they are doing so in front of the most public facing part of one of his companies’ brands. The problem is more stark in Europe, where Musk’s favorability is much worse than it is in the U.S. Tesla sales there declined a whopping 45 percent, comparing January 2024 to January 2025. Automotive and economic experts on the continent speculate that the decline could at least in part be related to Musk’s associations with far-right political parties there. Oppenheimer & Co research analyst Colin Rusch recently alluded to the possible drag from Musk’s polarizing role. “We view Mr. Musk’s political activity and increased regionalization as a potential overhang on TSLA sell-through,” he wrote in a note to clients. Undoubtedly, the brand has become more politicized than ever. And once that happens, it’s a difficult cycle to break. After conservatives boycotted Bud Light in 2023 due to the brand’s partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, sales dropped by 30 percent — and sales still aren’t back to where they once were. There is no organized boycott of Tesla. But as protests continue to occur outside showrooms and liberals wave goodbye to the cars they once loved, an electric vehicle market with an increasing number of manufacturers is providing more choice for people who want to keep an EV but stick it to Musk. Tom King, an options and futures trader with a devoted following, framed the challenge this way in a Tuesday video. Tesla’s share price, he noted, is “just getting the living daylights beat out of it.” “It’s all well and good to be looking at how we improve efficiency. Every company should be looking at efficiency, including the federal government,” he said, referring to Musk's DOGE activity. “However, Tesla is your baby. Pay some attention to your own kid. Because your own kid has wandered off of the crib and is now crawling on the ledge.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s authors at cmahtesian@politico.com and cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @PoliticoCharlie and @calder_mchugh.
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