Elon Musk’s status as the world’s wealthiest person is in no danger of changing.
But since mid-December, the tech titan’s net worth has declined by more than $100 billion, or approximately 25%, as a sell-off in shares of Tesla, his electric car maker, has accelerated in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, the stock closed down another 8% to $302.80 and is off 25% year to date. The latest drawdown comes as new data showed new Tesla vehicle registrations plummeting in Europe, down 45% year-on-year for January, even as overall sales growth of electric-battery vehicles on the continent climbed. Sales in China also recently came in trending down.
Some reports have suggested European buyers are revolting against Musk’s active role in the Trump administration, which is effectively resetting longstanding European relations.
Investors may also simply be locking in the extraordinary gains of the past year or so: Even with the recent drop-off, the stock is still up 52% over the past 12 months.
On Tuesday, Gary Black, managing partner at The Future Fund investment group, said Tesla shares could fall even further this year given an apparent revision in recent Tesla corporate management guidance about deliveries in 2025.
Musk has assumed an unprecedented — and highly controversial — role in American society with his alliance with President Donald Trump and his ostensible leadership of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. Musk also leads SpaceX; the social media platform X; the xAI artificial intelligence company; and Neuralink, a company that is exploring brain-chip implants.
Yet Tesla investors have grown accustomed to Musk’s multiple responsibilities — and indeed, continue to value Tesla stock highly because they see Musk as a uniquely capable figure.
To that point, some investors say Tesla’s recent stock reversal may not endure in the long term. The company is expected to deploy a robo-taxi service later this year, and continues to roll out new models to adapt to shifting driver preferences. It is also unveiling its full-self-driving technology in China.
“Tesla’s superior products, new more affordable vehicle, which I believe will be a new form factor and expand Tesla’s total addressable market, and the promise of unsupervised autonomy will sell more Teslas,” Black wrote on X over the weekend.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
