MW Tesla's stock has lost its 'Trump bump.' Here's the latest bad news.

By Tomi Kilgore

Tesla's monthly EV sales in China have tumbled by more than 50% in the past month

So long to the "Trump bump," as Tesla's stock is now trading below where it was before the election, as another month of bad sales data from China helped trigger the latest selloff.

Wall Street had believed Tesla investors would be among the biggest beneficiaries of a Donald Trump presidency, especially since Chief Executive Elon Musk provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support before the November election.

Read: Tesla's stock may see a 50% bump as Musk's 'bet for the ages' on Trump pays off

But Musk's prominent role in the Trump administration, which has started trade wars with key trading partners, including China and the European Union, has been hurting Tesla's sales - and is now costing investors and Musk money.

Tesla's stock $(TSLA)$ tanked 10.9% in midday trading, which puts it on track for the lowest close since Oct. 23, 2024. It was also headed for its biggest one-day selloff since the 12.3% drop on July 24, 2024, and is set up for an eighth-straight weekly loss, to extend the record set last week with its seven-week losing streak.

On Monday, the China Passenger Car Association said that the overall trend of new-energy passenger-car sales was "strong," with sales of market leader BYD Co. Ltd. (BYDDY) rising 7.3% to 318,233 units, according to a Google translation of official data.

But it certainly wasn't strong for Tesla, which saw sales sink 51.5% to 30,688 EVs in February, from the 63,238 units sold in January.

That was after data that showed sales registrations of Teslas in Germany, Europe's largest economy, plunged 76% in February, after sinking 60% in Germany and 45% across Europe in January, hurt by Musk's divisive politics. And in China, Tesla sales fell 11% in January.

That followed Tesla reporting on Jan. 29 fourth-quarter profit and revenue that missed expectations.

With Monday's selloff, investors and Mush have given up all of the stunning gain they had on paper at the stock's postelection peak, and then some.

From a close of $251.44 on Nov. 5, or Election Day, the stock had skyrocketed $228.42, or 90.8%, to its Dec. 17 record close of $479.86.

Basically, in just six weeks, Tesla added $734.73 billion in market capitalization, and the value of Tesla shares that Musk owned increased by $93.83 billion.

At current prices, Tesla is worth $55.55 billion less than before Trump's victory, and Musk has lost about $7.09 billion.

-Tomi Kilgore

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March 10, 2025 12:59 ET (16:59 GMT)

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