More on Musk and Tesla: Musk’s massive marketing miss cost $10 trillion.
Investors argue about Elon Musk’s attention all the time. Is Twitter a distraction? Did DOGE hurt the brand? Does SpaceX’s IPO pull money and focus away from Tesla? Instead of arguing, we checked the stock. We took nine dated moves since 2022 and measured Tesla against the S&P 500 one, three and twelve months later. There’s a quieter question behind this one: how much of your portfolio should ride on one person’s attention? We’ll come back to that at the end.
What Does Everyone Already Know?
Tesla had a rough week last week. It fell 10.4% in the five days the AI trade sold off, and the Nasdaq dropped 5.5% on November 5 alone. The stock has gained 6.0% since, through Tuesday. We’ve been covering what’s happening with AI stocks since last week. Here’s where Musk’s two public companies stand, Trefis data:
| Stock | Tue close | Below high | Past year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla | $379.78 | −22.5% | −11.6% |
| SpaceX | $143.09 | −29.1% | listed Jun 12 |
Both Musk stocks are well off their highs. SpaceX is 11.1% below its first-day close.
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share and began trading on June 12, the largest IPO on record. It closed its first day at $160.95, hit $201.80 four days later, then fell to $108.27 by August 5, a 46.3% drop in seven weeks. We wrote about Musk’s marketing miss on October 29. This piece measures something different: what the stock market has charged Tesla holders each time Musk’s attention moved.
What Happened In The Month After?
For each event we started from Tesla’s last close before the news and measured forward, price only:
| Musk move (date) | Tesla 1 mo | S&P 1 mo |
|---|---|---|
| Twitter stake (Apr 4, 2022) | −16.2% | −8.1% |
| Twitter bid (Apr 14, 2022) | −24.7% | −9.5% |
| Twitter deal closes (Oct 27, 2022) | −18.7% | +4.1% |
| xAI launched (Jul 12, 2023) | −10.2% | +0.6% |
| Endorses Trump (Jul 13, 2024) | −20.4% | −4.8% |
| Named to DOGE (Nov 12, 2024) | +27.3% | +1.1% |
| Leaves DOGE (May 28, 2025) | −9.3% | +4.8% |
| America Party (Jul 5, 2025) | −1.9% | +0.8% |
| SpaceX IPO (Jun 12, 2026) | −0.7% | +2.0% |
Tesla fell in the month after eight of the nine, and trailed the S&P 500 in the same eight. The exception was the week after the 2024 election.
That’s the key-person cost, measured. A month after a new Musk project, Tesla’s median move was −10.2%, while the S&P 500’s was +0.8%. It doesn’t matter much whether the news was a company, a political role or a party. The market’s first reaction was to mark Tesla down.
And The Year After?
Here’s where the story turns. Eight of the nine events have a full year behind them:
| Musk move | Tesla 1 yr | S&P 1 yr | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Twitter stake | −46.7% | −9.8% | −37 |
| Twitter bid | −45.1% | −6.6% | −38 |
| Twitter closes | −12.3% | +9.4% | −22 |
| xAI launched | −10.7% | +25.8% | −36 |
| Endorses Trump | +29.6% | +11.5% | +18 |
| Named to DOGE | +23.1% | +12.5% | +11 |
| Leaves DOGE | +22.1% | +28.7% | −7 |
| America Party | +27.8% | +19.5% | +8 |
The new businesses, Twitter and xAI, were followed by a year 22 to 38 points behind the market. The political moves weren’t: Tesla was ahead after three of four.
Over a year, Tesla’s median was +5.7% against the S&P 500’s +12.0%, and it trailed in five of eight. Three months out sits in between: Tesla was lower after seven of nine, median −3.8%, against +2.9% for the S&P 500. Be careful with the 2022 rows. That was a bear market driven by rising rates, and the S&P 500 fell too. Even so, after both April 2022 events Tesla lost about five to seven times as much as the index. Rates alone don’t explain a gap that size.
See more lines: how we measured
Start = Tesla’s last close before the event (for weekend news, the last trading day before). 1, 3 and 12 months = 21, 63 and 252 trading days later. “Gap” = Tesla’s 12-month return minus the S&P 500’s, in percentage points. The two April 2022 events are ten days apart and overlap almost completely, so this is closer to eight independent tests than nine. The SpaceX IPO is under a year old; three months on, Tesla was −8.4% and the S&P 500 +3.6%. Price only; dividends would add a little to the S&P 500 lines.
How Far Can Tesla Fall?
The month-after pattern is the small version of the risk. The big version is in Tesla’s worst falls, from a record close to the low, Trefis price history:
| Fall | Tesla | S&P 500 | Tesla back to high |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | −60.6% | −33.9% | Jun 2020 |
| 2021-23 | −73.6% | −25.4% | Dec 2024 |
| 2024-25 | −53.8% | −18.9% | Dec 2025 |
In each of the last three big falls, Tesla dropped about two to three times as far as the S&P 500, and each time it came back.
The 2024-25 row is the DOGE year. Tesla peaked at $479.86 on December 17, 2024, about a month after Musk’s DOGE role was announced, and bottomed at $221.86 on April 8, 2025. One more number: the day Musk said he was leaving DOGE, Tesla closed at $356.90. On Tuesday it closed at $379.78. Seventeen months later, after the stock fully recovered from that 54% fall, it is about 6% above where it was.
So What Did Tesla Do Next?
The short answer: it fell first. After eight of nine new Musk moves, Tesla was lower a month later and behind the market. The longer answer depends on what came next for Tesla’s own business and for the market. After the two new companies, the following year was bad. After the political moves, it was mostly good. That’s not a reason to trade the next headline. It’s a measurement of what owning Tesla means: you own a great deal of one person’s choices, and the price swings to match.
What Can You Do This Week?
Hold a position you could keep through the next Musk headline, whatever it is. Three steps:
1. Size Tesla as a key-person stock. Its worst fall was 73.6%. If the most you’d accept losing on one stock is 4% of your portfolio, 4% ÷ 74% is about 5.4%. A band of roughly 3% to 5.5% keeps a repeat of 2022 survivable. Trim above the top of the band on a strong day, add below the bottom on a weak one, by rule.
2. Count Musk, not just Tesla. If you own SpaceX too, add the two together; it’s one person’s attention on both. An S&P 500 index fund owns Tesla as well.
3. Sell the thesis, not the headline. Write down why you own Tesla: its car margins, its self-driving and robot plans, its energy business. Then write what would make you sell: those numbers going the wrong way for several quarters, or a formal change in Musk’s role at Tesla. A new venture, a post or a political fight isn’t on that list, because the record above shows the first month’s fall often wasn’t the end of the story.
What it replaces: selling Tesla the morning Musk announces something new, or buying it because “he always comes back.” Selling on the news would have dodged most first-month drops, but it leaves you guessing when to buy back, and after the political moves Tesla was up 22% to 30% over the year. Buying on faith ignores the Twitter and xAI years, when the gap to the market was 22 to 38 points.
What would change the plan: Tesla’s quarterly numbers, not the news cycle. On price, a fall like 2022’s from Tuesday’s level would take Tesla to about $100, and a fall like 2025’s to about $175. If either would force you to sell, the position is too big today.
Tesla fell in the month after eight of nine new Musk moves, and trailed the market in the same eight. Over a year it was mixed: 22 to 38 points behind after Twitter and xAI, ahead after three of four political moves (price only). Its worst fall was 73.6%. Size it as a key-person stock, count SpaceX with it, and sell on the business, not the headline.
What’s The Bigger Idea?
Sell the thesis, not the price. A falling price tells you how other people feel about Musk’s latest move. Tesla’s results tell you whether the business changed. The investors who sold after the DOGE year’s 54% fall sold at the bottom of a move that fully recovered about eight months after the low. And the longer view: from its first close in June 2010 at $1.59 (split-adjusted) to Tuesday, Tesla rose about 238 times, straight through every fall in the table above. That’s what key-person risk looks like when the person delivers. The job is to size it so you’re still holding when he does, and not ruined when he doesn’t.
“A falling price tells you how other people feel. The business tells you what it is worth.” – Anonymous
What Should You Ask Next?
Follow this story with us: we’ll add the next Musk move to the table and show what Tesla did a month later.
How Much Of Your Portfolio Rides On One Person?
Tesla has fallen more than 50% three times since 2020 and come back each time; the question is whether your plan would have held. If you have $1 million or more invested, get a second opinion from a Trefis expert partner advisor in a free 15-minute call, or let Invest With Trefis run the plan for you.
For questions about this article or underlying research, email help@trefis.com.
