Is Elon Musk the Wizard of EV, or is he just the man behind the curtain? That’s the question investors and investigators are increasingly asking, as they look at the financial state of Tesla. Since January, the company’s diluted market cap has dropped from $1.7 trillion to $800 billion. And Tesla’s price-to-earnings ratio, at 104, is more than 150% higher than the Nasdaq’s average P/E at 40.
“In one sense — and not a good one — Tesla isn’t a car company,” Bloomberg columnist Liam Denning wrote recently, noting the “carmaker” ended 2024 with big sales of zero-emission credits and a Bitcoin gain. “Factor in interest income on cash balances as well and you could be forgiven for thinking Tesla ended 2024 being more like a money manager specializing in crypto, green credits and Treasuries with a sideline in making cars.”
That’s only gotten worse in 2025. Tesla is losing market share around the world. In Europe sales are down 50% since Trump took office and Musk emerged as the face of DOGE. Investors and analysts complain Musk has let the company drift, and it’s gone years without a new model. Tesla’s European sales continued their freefall in February, with registrations down 44% compared with February 2024, following a 45% percent drop in January, according to market researcher Dataforce. According to the South China Morning Post, the company’s market share in China has dropped from 16% in 2022 to 4.3% in February 2025. In the U.S., Tesla sales slumped to 43,650 in February, their worst since 2022.
In a deep dive this week, The Financial Times reports that $1.4 billion in cash seems to be missing from Tesla’s books. “Compare Tesla’s capital expenditure in the last six months of 2024 to its valuation of the assets that money was spent on, and $1.4bn appears to have gone astray,” the newspaper wrote. Another red flag it pointed to: “Why [has] a business with a $37bn cash pile raised $6bn of new debt last year?” The newspaper doesn’t have an answer but suggests there may be some creative accounting here—though whether that is for longer-term investments or something less beneficial, it doesn’t say.
Another question bugging Tesla right now is just how good its technology is. Tesla’s Cybertrucks have been involved in eight recalls this year, and it’s only March. The latest recall is for a strip of metal below the front windows that can delaminate and fly into the roadway.
But even scarier is the problem with Tesla’s self-driving technology. While many other cars use Lidar, a form of laser-generated radar that scouts the terrain for obstacles ahead, Tesla uses cameras. And if it’s too dark or cloudy or foggy or rainy, the cameras are only about as good as the human eye. YouTuber Mark Rober, a former NASA scientist, tested Tesla’s camera-based self-driving tools, and boy, was it a bad day for the crash test dummy he planted in the middle of the road. The Tesla not only couldn’t see through fog, but it drove right through a wall painted with a realistic road scene, Wile E. Coyote–style.
Then there’s the political ill will Musk has generated. His comments on everything from Jews to the LGBTQ community have driven away his most logical customers, tree-hugging leftists who want a cleaner world. But it’s also angered people who would never have bought a Tesla to begin with. Across Europe, protesters have been burning Teslas and spraying them with swastikas after Musk’s Nazi salute at Tump’s inauguration. Now anti-Musk protesters are calling for 500 demonstrations at Tesla showrooms across the world on March 29, organizers said on a mobilizing call Wednesday.
Perhaps the biggest worry, and the sign that the shares are nothing more than a meme stock, is the share price itself. Shares are down 45% from their January 18 peak. Trump’s televised Tesla sale on the White House lawn did nothing to help, and shares fell again Thursday after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged Fox News, “If you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla.” On Wednesday, Tesla closed at $235.86. By late Thursday morning it was down to $230.17 before eventually closing at $236.25.
That may be why some Tesla insiders are dumping their shares. Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal sold $27 million worth and Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm sold $75 million. Not exactly a vote of confidence.
“We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly,” JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman said in a research note last week.
What do you think of Big Business This Week? Tell us how you really feel in this survey!
The Usual Suspects
- Fed preps for uncertainty: Leaving interest rates unchanged Wednesday for the second time in a row, the Federal Reserve said it was bracing for further inflation and warned that Trump’s policies had increased uncertainty about the economy’s future. Trump’s ongoing tariff taunts to U.S. trading partners mean “further progress may be delayed” on getting inflation back to the Fed’s ~2% target, chair Jerome Powell said. “In the current situation, uncertainty is remarkably high,” he added. Most officials still say they expect rates to drop from the current 4.25%–4.5% to 3.75%–4%, but they say the economy may only grow 1.7% this year, down 0.4% from earlier forecasts. What does that mean for you? Mortgage and credit card rates will stay high, and nervous consumers are keeping their money in their wallets, increasing the likelihood of a recession.
- Harry Potter and the House of Mouse? No, it’s not the latest Hogwarts fanfic. In fact, Orlando, Florida, is set to be the new battleground for Disney to defend its turf against Comcast’s NBCUniversal in May, when the owner of the Harry Potter and Mario Bros. franchises opens Epic Universe, a theme park showcasing more of its vast library of entertainment properties. Disney is concerned that its empire may be crumbling (just a bit). Disney’s parks have faltered in the run-up to Epic’s launch. Theme parks are usually its biggest money spinner, but revenue there was flat last year, even as ventures like streaming turned a profit for the first time. Disney shares are down 14% over the past 12 months, compared with an 8.5% jump for the S&P 500.
- Netflix and bill: It was one of Netflix’s biggest debacles: A $55 million write-off for a sci-fi series called Conquest, which was never completed. Now Conquest’s director, Carl Erik Rinsch, has been indicted for bilking the streaming company out of $12 million, which he spent on cars, furniture, stocks, and cryptocurrency. Did Netflix hire Rinsch for the wrong job? Investing a portion of the money he allegedly embezzled netted Rinsch a $27 million profit, The Wrap reported.
- Et tu, R2D2? Disney Research, Google DeepMind, and chipmaker Nvidia have joined forces to develop a physics engine that can simulate robotic movements in real-world settings, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Tuesday. Disney says it will use the engine to power Star Wars–inspired droids at its theme parks starting next year. Newton is supposed to help robots be more “expressive” and “learn how to handle complex tasks with greater precision,” Nvidia said.
- The TikTok Oracle? In barely two weeks, TikTok must find a buyer or shut down in the U.S. because its current owner, China’s ByteDance, has ties to the Chinese Communist Party that raised questions in Washington about China’s influence and U.S. national security. Oracle already processes and serves TikTok’s user data in the U.S., which could make it an early favorite. And then there’s Oracle founder and executive chair, Larry Ellison, a Trump buddy who had a front-row seat at the inauguration. Oracle met this week with congressional aides to discuss “compliance issues.”
- Did Ben & Jerry get mugged? It was really just a question of time. A quarter century after their 2000 sale to consumer products giant Unlever, iconic antiestablishment ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s has been smacked by its corporate parent, allegedly for being socially conscious. Ben & Jerry’s makes no secret of its SJW mission, but now the ice cream maker’s board said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday its CEO, David Stever, was fired by the Amsterdam-based food giant “to silence the social mission.” The corporate sale let Ben &Jerry’s keep an independent board to oversee the brand.
Get Big Business This Week in your inbox every week—and read it before everybody else! Sign up today.
The Short Stack
- Decommissioned: Trump fired the two Democratic commissioners on the five-member Federal Trade Commission Tuesday, saying their service was “inconsistent with [the] administration’s priorities.” As Vox reports: The president can only lawfully fire FTC commissioners — who serve seven-year terms — for incompetence or malfeasance.
- Drop those eggs! Wholesale egg prices have fallen to a national average of $4 a dozen, down from $8 at the end of February. But eggs have a four-week shelf life, so consumers may not see a drop at the supermarket till the end of March. Part of the reason for the fall: no new outbreaks of avian flu. But also pushing it: Demand is down.
- Big Oil is bummed: The U.S. oil industry spent at least $75 million to help get Trump elected, but since his inauguration, oil prices have dropped about 14% to just $67 a barrel, and Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro has said a $50 barrel would be great for the economy. Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada have also raised the cost of oil imports that the U.S. refines, and shrunk the market for the refined products the U.S. then exports. And there are the steel tariffs. If you wanna “Drill, baby drill,” you need a lot of increasingly expensive steel pipe. Oil execs are unhappy, The New York Times reports.
- Forever bankrupt: Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy protection, again, this week, listing assets of $100 million to $500 million, and liabilities of $1 billion to $5 billion. The company also filed for bankruptcy in 2019.
- LMGTFY! A group of Israeli army veterans sold their cyber security startup Wiz to Google parent Alphabet for $32 billion on Wednesday in the largest-ever acquisition of a privately funded startup. The move would give Google’s cloud services an edge over rivals as customers become increasingly concerned about hacking in an AI-powered world.
- Foul ball? As pro sports remains one of the few entertainment products still attracting huge audiences, the San Francisco Giants have sold about 10% of the team to private equity group Sixth Street, the New York Times reports. The team will use the cash to upgrade their stadium. The price was not disclosed, but the Giants were last valued at $3.8 billion by Forbes. The Giants, who once played in New York City’s Washington Heights, are owned by a syndicate of 35 owners. About 15 MLB teams have private equity owners.
SLAPPed Down, But Not Out
A U.S. energy pipeline company won a massive judgment against the environmental group Greenpeace that could cost the nonprofit $660 million for its support of peaceful protests held a decade ago against an oil pipeline that traversed sacred Native Ameican territory.
Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners sued Greenpeace in 2019, accusing the environmental group of masterminding the protests, spreading misinformation and causing the company financial loss through damaged property and lost revenues. After a three-week trial, CNN reported, the nine-person jury took two days to return their verdict, awarding more than $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer.
More than half the jurors in rural Mandan, North Dakota, said they had ties to the fossil fuel industry, and during jury selection, the Guardian reported that potential jurors appeared to largely dislike the protests.
But Kristin Casper, legal counsel to Greenpeace International, one of three Greenpeace groups sued by Energy Transfer, said the organization’s fight would continue, and they were not going to let themselves be stopped a SLAPP suit (strategic lawsuits against public participation), which are illegal in some jurisdictions. “Energy Transfer hasn’t heard the last of us in this fight. We’re just getting started with our anti-SLAPP lawsuit against Energy Transfer’s attacks on free speech and peaceful protest,” he said. “We will see Energy Transfer in court this July in the Netherlands. We will not back down, we will not be silenced.”
Peter S. Green is a veteran reporter and editor who has spent more than two decades covering business and finance from Eastern Europe to New York City, and has worked for Bloomberg News, The New York Post, The New York Times and The Messenger. He lives in New York City and is always looking for the next big story.
