Elon Musk Urges Staff Not to Sell Tesla Shares

Elon Musk arrives for President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on March 4, 2025. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla Motors, urged employees not to sell company shares amid a sharp decline in the stock.

Share prices of the electric vehicle maker have suffered their worst stretch ever, plummeting by 35 percent this year.

Market watchers say Musk’s involvement in the Trump administration, which has sparked a political divide, has significantly contributed to the stock’s selloff over the past few months. The company has also faced a plethora of bearish developments, including a record level of Tesla trade-ins for new automobile purchases, thousands of Cybertruck recalls, and tariff-related concerns.

Despite the company’s “rocky moments,” the Tesla executive encouraged staff to “hang onto their stock.”

“It’s very difficult for people in the stock market, especially those that look in the rear-view mirror, which is most people, to imagine a future where suddenly a 10-million-vehicle fleet has five to 10 times the usefulness,” Musk said at an all-hands gathering on March 20.

“And some people, like Cathie Wood at Ark Invest, do see the future. So, what I’m saying is, hang onto your stock.”

Musk also addressed the wave of vandalism that has impacted the company.

Across the United States and Canada, footage has been seen of individuals damaging Tesla cars, torching Tesla chargers, and vandalizing Tesla dealerships.

“If you read the news, it feels like Armageddon. I can’t walk past a TV without seeing a Tesla on fire,” he said. “I understand if you don’t want to buy our product, but you don’t have to burn it down. That’s a bit unreasonable.”

His call to action ostensibly boosted the stock, which rallied as much as 4 percent during the end-of-week trading session.

Tesla Bulls

Various Wall Street analysts have kept their favorable outlooks intact.

According to data compiled by MarketBeat, the Tesla stock maintains a “Hold” rating, with 21 “Buy” and eight “Hold” forecasts. Shares also possess a 31 percent upside over the next 12 months.

Investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded the stock and expected an 89 percent upside. Wedbush’s Daniel Ives reiterated his “Outperform” rating, and George Gianarikas of Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated his “Buy” rating. Both analysts forecast tremendous upside to the share price.

Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments, is also bullish about Tesla—but not for its electric cars.

“What I think you have in there right now is a political factor, you have the short sellers. It’s easier because volumes are slowing in the car business, but we aren’t buying this for the electric vehicle component part of the business,” Tengler said in an emailed note to The Epoch Times.

“We’re buying it for the full self-driving, which really is AI, and we’re buying it for the mega utility-grade batteries that will allow green energy to be stored and utilized in periods when there is no wind or sun.”

The stock has been trading “more on narrative than fundamentals,” says Jamie Meyers, a senior analyst at Laffer Tengler Investments.

A Tesla showroom in New York City, on March 20, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

“We believe Tesla is in a decent position moving forward. If Elon Musk reengages more actively, that would be a positive catalyst, but overall, the company is progressing as expected,” he said in an emailed note to The Epoch Times.

This month, the company received resounding endorsements from the White House.

President Donald Trump purchased a $90,000 red Tesla, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged the public to buy Tesla stock.

“If you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Lutnick said in a March 19 interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters.

“It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is so cheap. It'll never be this cheap again.”

Not everyone in government has the same ebullient attitude toward the Tesla brand.

This week, Gov. Tim Walz told a Wisconsin crowd that looking at Tesla stock gives him joy.

“There’s this thing on my phone, I know some of you know this, on the iPhone. They’ve got that little stock app. I added Tesla to it to give me a little boost during the day,” the former vice presidential candidate said at an event, adding “225 and dropping,” as he referred to the share price.

Musk Touts Optimus Robots

Tesla projects that it will build 5,000 Optimus humanoid robots this year, Musk announced at the meeting.

The company plans to translate its self-driving technology to bolster the production of Optimus robots, which is scheduled to start this year. While it could construct as many as 12,000 Optimus products, Musk says the goal is 5,000 because it is a new product.

Tesla, says Musk, is the only company with the components necessary to manufacture intelligent humanoid robots at scale.

“Optimus has gone from being an idea to the most sophisticated humanoid robot on Earth,” he said.

“My prediction is that Optimus will be the biggest product of all time by far. Nothing will even be close. I think it will be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made.”

Musk added that Tesla aims to reach 50,000 units in 2026, and the robot will be available for use outside of a controlled climate in the second half of next year.

The Tesla chief has expressed ambitious plans since revealing the company’s initiative to build humanoid robots at an AI Day event in 2021.

At an annual shareholder meeting in June 2024, Musk estimated that Optimus robots could turn Tesla into a $25 trillion business, though he stopped short of forecasting a time frame.

In January, Musk repeated this optimism during a fourth-quarter earnings call.

“I think long-term Optimus has the potential to be north of $10 trillion in revenue. Like, it’s real bananas,” he told shareholders and analysts. “My prediction long term is that Optimus will be overwhelmingly the value of the company.”

Like the EV market, Tesla has witnessed increasing competition in the humanoid robot industry, as many companies have accelerated the technology.

Because of the confined and pre-defined environment, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang thinks the manufacturing industry will be the first to use these machines within the next five years.

“I think it ought to go to factories first. And the reason for that is because the domain is much more guard-railed, and the use case is much more specific,” Huang told a group of journalists at the company’s annual developer conference in San Jose, California, on March 19.

“The value of it is very, very easy to determine. The going rate for renting a human robot is probably $100,000, and I think it’s pretty good economics.”

Reuters contributed to this report.