Elon Musk Accounts For As Much As $150 Of Tesla’s Share Price, Says Long Time Investor

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With Tesla shares having one of their worst days in recent history today, one of the firm's investors believes that the firm's CEO, Elon Musk, accounts for as much as $150 of its value. Tesla's rise from being a nearly defunct EV manufacturer to a global manufacturing powerhouse is attributed to Musk's work ethic at the firm's factories. Investors were buoyant about the stock following President Trump's November election victory, but concerns about Tesla's falling deliveries have pushed the stock to lose a whopping 41% year-to-date and erase all post-election gains.
Ahead of yesterday's 15% drop, which was the largest since September 2020, longtime Tesla investor Ross Gerber had shared that the stock could lose as much as 50% this year.

Tesla Shares Gain 2.8% In Premarket Trading After Yesterday's Multi-Billion Dollar Bloodbath

Tesla investor Ross Gerber, who heads the investment firm Gerber Kawasaki, gave an in-depth interview to Business Insider in late February. By then, the shares had lost a quarter of their value, but Gerber cautioned that the shares had plenty more to lose. While year-to-date, the shares are down by 40%, the fall is steeper when we look at the post-election Tesla stock price boom. The shares peaked at around $480 in mid-December, and from that peak, they have lost more than 53% as of yesterday's close.

In his interview, the long-time Tesla investor had warned about lofty valuation, a slowdown in EV deliveries, Musk's non-Tesla commitments, and problems with the firm's assisted driving platform dubbed Full Self Driving. He believes that Tesla's aim to launch autonomous cabs by June is ambitious, particularly due to Musk's decision to rely on cameras instead of lidar sensors.

Commenting on Musk, Gerber shared that he'd feel more comfortable if Musk spent his time devoted to Full Self Driving instead of his AI company xAI. Yet, while the EV billionaire's role in the Trump administration appears to have spooked the market, his leaving his role at Tesla could be much worse for the stock. In his interview, Gerber pointed out that a large portion of Tesla's valuation was built around Musk's business acumen and success in spearheading Tesla's manufacturing efforts.

He estimated that Musk could account for anywhere in between $150 to $200 of Tesla's per-share valuation. The stock closed at $290 on February 26th, implying that Musk could account for more than half of the share price.

While Tesla's delivery woes, which have driven the stock down, are attributed to Musk's politics, the executive did outline during the firm's fourth-quarter earnings that a factory upgrade would mean lower vehicle output. "[N]ow Q1, we’ve got this massive factory retooling for the new Model Y, for example," he had shared, adding that the retooling "obviously has a short-term impact on output."

Tesla's shares dropped by 15% yesterday amidst a broader market selloff. However, the stock led major market indexes in losses amidst bearish catalysts, including a report from UBS, which slashed the investment bank's Q1 delivery forecast to 367,000 from an earlier 437,000.

However, the share price crash caught the attention of Musk's key ally, President Donald Trump. In a post on Truth Social, the President expressed support for Musk's company and decried critics' 'illegal and collusive' attempts to boycott Tesla. Trump added that he's "going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk."

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