Tesla for years had more repeat U.S. customers than any other major automotive brand but its loyalty has plunged since CEO Elon Musk endorsed President Donald Trump last summer, according to data from research firm S&P Global Mobility shared exclusively with Reuters.
The data, which has not been previously reported, shows Tesla’s customer loyalty peaked in June 2024, when 73% of Tesla-owning households in the market for a new car bought another Tesla, according to an S&P analysis of vehicle-registration data in all 50 states.
That industry-leading brand loyalty rate started to nosedive in July, that data showed, when Musk endorsed Trump following an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on the Republican nominee.
I want TSLA to get to the point where it can’t fall. It’s currently $300+ as of this post. Come on, y’all. Why are you still holding TSLA?
There are theoretical lower limits on the share price, where it can’t go much lower. One is the Book Value Per Share, which is the value after all debts are subtractes from all assets, per share. This is the theoretical value per share of the company had to end and all assets were instantly liquidated, with no upside for future revenue at all:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bvps.asp
The numbers from the most recent quarter show Telsa with a BVPS of $23.98.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/key-statistics/
They also show that TSLA has more cash on hand than debt, $36B to $13B, and shows an operating profit. The stock price is not likely to crater until they start losing money on a regular basis, and even then they have a pile of cash they can use to stay afloat.
Elon may be a moron, but the people who run their financial side seem to know what they are doing.
They could also easily wind down some of their very high capital expenditures to last even longer. It’d mean slowing their growth and shelving some new ideas, things we probably haven’t even seen, but that would dramatically change their balance sheet.
Doing that isn’t good for the long term though, it would just cause a stagnation loop leading to further scaling back, but as a temporary measure if cash preservation was important enough, it is an option worth tens of billions over multi year time frame.
Edit: and by slowing growth I don’t mean their car sales are declining so that’s not growth, I mean maybe investing less in the AI super computer they are building, or not building a 2nd lithium refinery right away even if the 1st one works out as planned. The kind of things that are good for the future of the company, but you can’t just throw money at when things might turn dire and you need to hang onto that cash for security.
Some investment things like betterment will buy Tesla as part of their automation, and the end user might not even know.