The Latest Tempest for Tesla's Stock Looks to Have Come to an End
The latest tempest around Tesla’s shares appears to have passed.
Tesla’s (TSLA) stock is rising for a fourth straight day and was recently right around the price at which it closed June 4. That was the session before a spat between CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump led to a remarkable series of social-media posts and statements that culminated in a one-day drop of about $150 billion in Tesla’s market value. Tesla’s market value is meanwhile back above $1 trillion, according to Visible Alpha data.
Put another way, investors appear to have moved on, even if the degree to which Musk and Trump have—the former earlier today posted that he “went too far” in some of his comments regarding the president, though he didn’t say which ones—remains an open question.
Tesla bulls would undoubtedly prefer it this way. Musk is seeking to reframe the perception of his business from a carmaker to a leader in robotics, AI and autonomous mobility; a Trump-Musk breakup was reasonably seen as creating a possible overhang, even as some observers thought that worry was overblown.
Deepwater Asset Management called the Musk-Trump friction an “overreaction” in a Saturday note. “Long term, the White House will likely support autonomy given its central role in global AI leadership,” the firm’s note read.
“Bottom line: a key component of our Tesla thesis has officially begun playing out,” Piper Sandler analysts wrote Tuesday, citing the rollout of driverless Teslas in Austin, Texas. “We expect the stock to sustain upward momentum in the coming weeks.”
Other factors are helping support stocks—including high-profile tech shares—lately. Today, for example, inflation data and the appearance of progress on the trade front gave investor sentiment a boost. (Read Investopedia’s full coverage of today’s trading here.)
But it nevertheless appears that investors are moving beyond last week’s headlines and—as Shakespeare’s Prospero might have said—these latest revels are now ended.