Elon Musk spent the first half 2025 trying to run the government like one of his startups. It didn’t go well.
Investors punished Tesla for his political side quest — ironically named DOGE — and only started to come back once Musk dropped the act and returned to the wheel.
Still, Kalshi traders think there’s a 14% chance Musk is out as CEO this year. Polymarket traders put that number at 12%.
In short: The stock’s still volatile, and a lot of that depends on investors’ view of Musk, but the worst seems behind it. For now.
Act I: Wreckage in Motion
Tesla rang in 2025 riding high — shares holding just above $400, optimism still bleeding over from the holiday robotaxi hype (Polymarket traders think there’s a 70% chance of that happening in 2025). But then Musk swerved hard into politics. As self-appointed head of DOGE (that’s the “Department of Government Efficiency”), he went full crusader mode in D.C., slashing budgets and tweeting like a meme machine. The market hated it. Protests flared at Tesla showrooms. EU sales tanked. By March, TSLA had dropped nearly 40%, scraping the $250s.
Act II: The Walk-Back
In April, Musk blinked. On an earnings call that felt more like a confessional, he admitted the obvious: DOGE was a distraction, and Tesla was paying the price. He promised to shift his focus back to EVs, autonomy, and actual cars. Wall Street exhaled. The stock jumped 20% in a matter of weeks.
Act III: Hype Meets Gravity
By June, Musk had re-centered himself in Austin, showing off Tesla’s long-teased robotaxi fleet. $4.20 rides were on offer. Headlines loved it. So did investors — briefly. The stock surged another 8%, and Musk personally made $19 billion in a single day. But the shine wore off quick. Safety questions piled up. Global sales stayed soft. And critics kept hammering Tesla for being more about spectacle than substance.
Meanwhile, DOGE (the other DOGE)
Musk’s political alter ego had also infected the crypto markets. His rise as “Chief Efficiency Officer” gave Dogecoin another shot of hype, but it didn’t last. As soon as he stepped back, DOGE lost steam. The coin now hovers around 16 cents — still standing, but no longer riding shotgun in the Tesla narrative. One stat says it all: Musk quitting DOGE may have single-handedly restored $158 billion to Tesla’s market cap.
Where Things Stand
Tesla’s clawed back a lot of what it lost, now holding near $330 a share as of this writing. But it’s walking a tightrope — still trading at the low end of analyst expectations and battered by European boycotts, geopolitical noise, and the ever-present risk of Musk being, well, Musk again.
