Should You Sell Tesla Stock as Elon Unrest Grows?

(Image credit: Getty Images)

"Should you sell Tesla stock" is more than a mental exercise at this point. People who watch price charts for a living will tell you that.

And it is more than just your imagination: Tesla CEO Elon Musk is everywhere. He's building electric vehicles. He's launching space rockets. He's making the government more efficient.

One evening, Musk is talking to Larry Kudlow on Fox News about the Department of Government Efficiency and its impact.

From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance

Become a smarter, better informed investor. Subscribe from just ~~$107.88~~ $24.99, plus get up to 4 Special Issues

CLICK FOR FREE ISSUE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/y99mlvgqmn1763972420.png

Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters

Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.

Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.

The next morning, President Donald Trump is posting on Truth Social about buying his very own Tesla EV "as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk."

(By then, the explosion of a SpaceX rocket five days prior was ancient news.)

Kudlow, who ran the National Economic Council from March 2018 through the end of the first Trump administration, asked Elon how he was managing it all. "With great difficulty," the CEO responded.

It's fair to conclude this "great difficulty" is reflected in weakening fundamental business data such as Tesla EV sales numbers in the U.S., Europe and China (to say nothing of the SpaceX failure).

Tesla (TSLA) stock traded higher on Tuesday, March 11, while most of the rest of the market was still struggling in the aftermath of one of the biggest single-day sell-offs in recent memory.

In that session, TSLA bore down 15.4% for its largest intraday loss since September 2020. At its March 10 intraday low, the EV stock had retraced 55% from its post-election intraday peak of $488.54 on December 18.

Value-hunters might ask whether the fresh bounce will renew the rally and if TSLA is now a buy.

Let's approach it from another angle: Should you sell Tesla stock at these levels?

Tesla stock: What the analysts say

As far as Wedbush analyst Dan Ives is concerned, "should you sell Tesla stock" is not a serious question.

Reflecting on the March 10 price action for TSLA and its fellow Mag 7 stocks such as Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) as well as AI stock Palantir (PLTR), another company linked to the White House, Ives said those are Wedbush's "top picks to own in this brutal sell-off."

Ives cites a litany of trouble, including protests at Tesla dealers and violence directed at Tesla drivers in the U.S. and Europe. He also notes that "more Musk-related brand worries and distractions related to DOGE/Trump administration have been an albatross over Tesla's stock."

And, yet, "with a horrific 2025 so far," Ives reiterates his Outperform rating (which means "buy") and his $550 12-month price target.

Ives concedes "this is a gut check moment for the Tesla bulls," but concludes that "this is the start of the biggest innovation and technology cycle in Tesla's history ahead over the next few years."

UBS Global Research analyst Joseph Spak has a different view on TSLA stock. Emphasizing those fundamental issues, on March 10, Spak reiterated his Sell rating (which means "sell") and reduced his 12-month price target from $259 to $225.

Citing soft sales numbers for January and February, Spak cut his forecast for full-year electric vehicle deliveries to 1.7 million, a 5% year-over-year decline and well below a Wall Street consensus of 2 million.

"While the long-term story at Tesla has shifted to AI (robotaxis and humanoid robots) and progress there continues," Spak writes, "we believe these are longer-dated opportunities that the premium multiple already (more than) considers."

Spak notes that TSLA stock is trading at 90 times consensus earnings per share estimates for 2025. "We believe that is too high," Spak concludes.

CappThesis founder and chief market technician Frank Cappelleri is concerned only about TSLA stock's price action. And he's not sure where its price is headed.

"With every trendline, retracement level, former high or low and moving average being sliced through," Cappelleri, a technical analyst, writes, "the stock is in pure support discovery mode now."

"At some point," Cappelleri concludes, "a new reference point will be established." Still, he adds, "I'd rather miss the low rather than try to guess where the stock will stop falling."

Should you sell Tesla stock?

So, after all that, should you sell Tesla stock? Here's the unsatisfying answer: It depends on your risk tolerance, your investment objectives and your time horizon.

Investors have legitimate questions about the fundamental health of the business and the CEO's attention to it. Traders and speculators will find much to love about the recent volatility and their opportunity to exploit short-term spikes to the upside and the downside.

A wise investor I once knew consistently said to "buy the business." Well, here, it's to sell or not to sell. And, as Ives suggests, it's at least as much about pure hope right now as it is on-the-ground operations.

"We expect Musk will better balance his time between DOGE and Tesla/SpaceX over the course of 2025," Ives forecast on March 10, "and some of these distraction issues will fade."

Ives – as aggressive a Tesla bull as there is on Wall Street – concludes that "the best thing that ever happened to Musk and Tesla was Trump in the White House."

That conclusion rests on "a deregulatory environment with a federal autonomous roadmap central to the Tesla golden strategic vision."

The answer to the question "should you sell Tesla stock" is a function of your level of belief in that vision.

David Dittman is the former managing editor and chief investment strategist of Utility Forecaster, which was named one of "10 investment newsletters to read besides Buffett's" in 2015. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, and the Villanova University School of Law, and a former stockbroker, David has been working in financial media for more than 20 years.