Tesla’s retail fans buy the stock at a pace never seen before
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Sales of Tesla cars have sunk in key European markets, such as France and Germany, as well as in China and Australia.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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NEW YORK – Tesla’s stock is in a free fall. Its sales are plunging around the world. Even its most avid Wall Street bulls are turning cautious. But one group is buying the electric vehicle maker’s shares like never before: chief executive Elon Musk’s fans.
The company has long had an ardent fan base of individual investors who hang on Mr Musk’s every word on X, the social media platform he owns. They analyse Tesla in great detail in online forums and largely function as a hype crew for the stock.
But their current level of enthusiasm is staggeringly high, even by recent historical standards. Individual investors have been net buyers of Tesla shares for 13 straight sessions up to March 20, pumping US$8 billion (S$10.7 billion) into the stock, retail trading data from JPMorgan Chase’s global equity derivatives strategist Emma Wu shows. That is the biggest inflow over any buying streak since 2015, which is as far back as the data goes.
What makes the retail buying notable is that Tesla’s share price has sunk 17 per cent over this time, wiping out more than US$155 billion from its market value.
“I’ve missed several opportunities with Tesla in the past. Now that the stock has dropped significantly, could this be a good time to invest?” wrote the author of a post on the Reddit forum for Tesla traders. Another said they were “very happy” to buy the stock at a US$225 to US$230 range. The shares closed 5.3 per cent up at US$248.66 on March 21.
“Tesla made some rookie to mid-stage public market investors extremely wealthy, a lot of people became millionaires because of this stock,” said Mr Nicholas Colas, co-founder at DataTrek Research. “People don’t forget that. And they will come back to a stock again and again if they feel it has been beaten up.”
Tesla shares have been on a steep slide since mid-December 2024, when it touched an all-time high fuelled by optimism from US President Donald Trump’s election victory. But that euphoria vanished, with the stock retreating more than 50 per cent from its record on Dec 17, making it the second-biggest decliner in the S&P 500 index in 2025.
The rout has been so brutal that Mr Musk sought to reassure Tesla employees during an all-hands meeting on March 20, which most likely sparked the rebound in the shares the following day.
What has become clear is that what Wall Street thought would be a boon for the firm – Mr Musk’s prominent role in the Trump administration as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency – has instead become an albatross.
His growing political presence and involvement with controversies in Europe have triggered a backlash against the firm and its leader,
Sales of Tesla cars have sunk in key European markets, such as France and Germany, as well as in China and Australia. Global numbers will not be available until the firm reports its first-quarter delivery figures early in April, but analysts across Wall Street have been aggressively cutting their estimates for sales and profits, citing the bleak data from around the globe. BLOOMBERG
