Concerns about a recession and President Donald Trump’s tariff threats led to a sell-off on Wall Street. Tesla shares fell 15.4% on March 10, 2025, marking their largest single-day drop since September 2020.
Tesla’s stock has fallen more than 50% from its December peak of $479, resulting in a reduced market capitalization of $696 billion, down from $1.5 trillion. CEO Elon Musk downplayed the situation on X, stating, “It’ll be fine long-term,” despite facing protests and declining electric vehicle sales impacting his company.
The plunge down 41.4% year-to-date and 36.6% in recent months followed UBS slashing its price target to $225 from $259, citing weak Model 3 and Y demand. Broader U.S. markets tanked, too: The S&P 500 fell 2.7%, the Dow 2%, and the Nasdaq 4%, hitting multi-month lows.
Tesla’s woes deepened with a 76% sales drop in Germany last month and vandalism—gunshots in Oregon, arson in Boston—amid anti-Musk backlash tied to his Trump role. The Tesla Stock Drop signals stormy times.
Read: X Suffers Global Outages: Musk Blames Massive Cyberattack
As Tesla bled, Musk juggled woes across X (outages blamed on a “cyberattack”) and SpaceX (a rocket blast in Florida).
Critics are questioning Trump’s focus, as his advisory responsibilities clash with the chaos in his business ventures. Musk attributed the protests at Tesla to “Democratic donors” and downplayed SpaceX’s recent failure, saying, “Rockets are hard.” Will the potential drop in Tesla’s stock compel a shift in strategy, or is Musk’s nonchalant attitude sufficient?
