Tesla Share Prices in the First Quarter of the New Century: The Impact of Musk’s “Decisions on the Department of Government Efficiency”

In the first quarter of the new century, sales of the electric car company fell by 13 percent due to the continued controversy over Musk and his involvement in the administration.

In early trading, the results sent the stock down even more, as they showed that the company had lost a third of its value since the start of the year. The share price started to rally before noon.

“I might call it a disaster,” says Daniel Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities. Wall Street was “anticipating softness, but this was, I think, one of the worst delivery quarters relative to the original expectations in the last few years,” he says.

It is a sentiment shared by other analysts. In February, Gene said Musk’s increased political visibility has been the reason for lowered expectations forTesla.

The new administration’s push to reduce government spending has become a priority because of Musk, who supported Trump and donated a quarter of a billion dollars to his campaign. Musk is the public face of unpopular cuts, which include the elimination of entire agencies, as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. His moves have led to protests at the stores, as well as acts of vandalization of the company’s buildings.

Most recently, Musk poured some $20 million into a Wisconsin Supreme Court race in an unsuccessful effort to tip the court in Republicans’ favor. Speaking at a rally in the state ahead of Tuesday’s poll, Musk acknowledged that working for the White House was “a very expensive job” and that “my Tesla stock and the stock of everyone who holds Tesla has gone roughly in half.” Susan Crawford won the race, which will keep the court leaning towards the Democrats.

“I continue to believe he’s really the CEO of Tesla and … likely [will be] for another 5 to 10 years,” Ives says. “[But] he’s going to have to take a step back from DOGE and start to actually become more involved [at Tesla].”

She is an editor with experience covering aviation, public transportation, and electric vehicles. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.

The Tesla Takedown Phenomenon: Tesla’s Challenges and Prospects for Robots and Self-Driving Vehicles

While Tesla faces new hurdles, other automakers are reporting brisk sales of their own EVs. General Motors, for example, reported nearly 32,000 EVs sold in the first quarter, roughly doubling its figure year over year.

Musk’s antics have spawned a nationwide protest movement called Tesla Takedown aimed at boycotting the company and driving down its stock price. And it appears to be successful in persuading many progressive Tesla owners to sell their vehicles, despite steep drops in used car values.

There have also been an unrelated spate of violent attacks on Tesla stores and vehicles around the world, including arson and vandalism. A fire at a showroom in Rome resulted in 17 cars being destroyed. Trump said that those caught vandalizing the vehicles would be charged with domestic terrorism.

Musk wants to see artificial intelligence, robots, and self-driving cars lead to new financial heights for the company. He claims the company will launch an “unsupervised” robotaxi pilot in Austin, Texas, in June. His promises about automated driving haven’t panned out. Dozens of fatal crashes involving the company’s partially automated features have been pointed out by experts to be due to the company’s approach to the technology.