Elon Musk’s Tesla records biggest-ever slump by any company in six weeks

Electric car-maker Tesla and its founder Elon Musk are known for breaking records. And they broke another one on Friday, recording the biggest ever dip in stock value over a short period. The company recently witnessed a record seven-month increase in market capitalisation, which sky-rocketed from $30 billion in April, 2020 to over $849 billion towards the end of January.

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That increase saw Musk’s net worth shoot up to $185 billion, taking him ahead of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the richest person on Earth. 

However, since that late-January peak, Tesla’s valuation has plummeted by 36%, shedding $305 billion to now be valued at $566 billion by the morning of March 5. The company’s share prices fell from $883 to $566. 

No company ever has recorded such a slump over a period of just five-and-a-half-weeks.  

Tesla’s drop in value is greater than the market capitalisation of all but 16 of the biggest companies listed on the S&P 500. Tesla dropped more than twice the combined market capitalisation of Ford and General Motors and over $100 billion more than Toyota’s, the world’s second most valuable automaker. 

Telsa has been a highly-volatile stock, shedding great amounts only to soon recover past the previous peaks. It recorded two significant dips last year, from mid-February to mid-March (by nearly half) and in September (34%), but rallied back on both occasions. 

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Tesla shares will now need to regain 56% in order to hit the previous peak of $843, as well as the company’s valuation of $849 billion.