Elon Musk admits he’s running Tesla with ‘great difficulty’ as shares tank 54% since December—but says EV maker will be ‘fine’ long term

• Elon Musk’s growing political involvement and extensive workload across multiple companies, including Tesla, X, and his new White House role, have raised concerns about his ability to effectively manage them all. Tesla’s stock has dropped significantly.

Back when Elon Musk was merely running Tesla and trying to get Twitter out of bankruptcy, he admitted he was “worried” about the toll it was taking on his well-being. Now, a few years later—and while still also working on Neuralink, xAI, SpaceX and The Boring Company—Musk has taken on another role at the White House.

With this workload, it’s reasonable to ask if any of the companies Musk has founded or leads gets his full attention—and if they are suffering because of it.

A quick look at Tesla’s share price paints a somewhat murky picture.

At the time of writing the EV maker’s share price is down approximately 54% from its peak in December, down 41.4% for 2025 thus far.

Correspondingly, Musk’s net worth has fallen by $185 billion since its peak also in December, now sitting at $301 billion per the Bloomberg billionaires index. While the figures may sound alarming, in context they are less so: Musk is still the richest person on the planet, and sits $85 billion ahead of the next person on the world’s rich list: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

But while Musk is still worth billions, Tesla shareholders cannot afford to be so relaxed about a significant portion of their stock’s value vanishing.

When Tesla’s tanking stock price was posted on Twitter, Musk responded: “It will be fine long-term.”

But in the short-term, the EV-maker has some pressing issues to address. Musk’s sudden interest in politics across the globe—not only in the U.S. but also the U.K., Germany, Canada and Argentina—has prompted a boycott of the Tesla brand.

This has included customers cancelling orders, showrooms and charging stations being set on fire, cybertrucks set alight, and foreign politicians supporting voters who shun the brand.

These issues would be enough to challenge any CEO—never mind an individual who has also been tasked with cutting $1 trillion in federal government spending.

When Musk was asked by Fox News how he was managing to run his businesses, he responded: “With great difficulty.”

The Tesla CEO didn’t expand on that difficulty, instead moving the conversation back to politics: “I’m just here trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and fraud, and so far we’re making good progress.”

Tesla did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Problems at X

Tesla isn’t Musk’s only cause for concern.

While Linda Yaccarino is the woman leading social media platform X, Musk is the owner and uses it as a mouthpiece for many of his political announcements.

This organization too is being targeted. Musk posted on the platform: “There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X. We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

It seems the positive sentiment that once buoyed Musk’s businesses has turned: Back in December Tesla share prices bounced as buyers expected favorable rhetoric out of Washington given the close relationship between Musk and President Trump.

The relationship between the two has indeed proven to be close—so much so that the president has promised to buy a new Tesla amid the boycott.

But it is this very alliance, and Musk’s political actions more generally, that are now at the root of some of Tesla’s problems.

Market take

Analysts are carefully watching Tesla’s movements, though they have yet to make any catastrophic predictions.

Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid, for example, wrote in a note seen by Fortune this morning: “Within the Mag-7, Tesla (-15.43%) saw its worst day since September 2020 … It’s now trading back to December 2020 levels. So it shows how quickly sentiment can change for such companies.”

Likewise Goldman Sachs wrote last week its rating on Tesla stock remains neutral, but lowered its 12-month price target to $320 from $345.

Goldman equity researchers Mark Delaney, Will Bryant, Morgan Leung and Aman Gupta added Tesla is facing strong competition in China—particularly when it comes to full self-driving software—as well as flatter demand in the U.S. and Europe.

Overall, downside risks include “potentially larger vehicle price reductions than we expect, increased competition in EVs, slower EV demand, delays with products/capabilities like FSD/4680, key person risk, the internal control environment, margins, and operational risks associated with Tesla’s high degree of vertical integration.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com