Tesla ( TSLA ) began 2024 with a bang.
In January alone, the company was slammed by a recall dealing with an Autopilot glitch, reports about CEO Elon Musk’s troubling drug habits, and increased competition at home and abroad . By February, the stock was down 24% , and it would be stuck as one of the worst performers in the S&P 500 for the first quarter of the year and part of the second as Tesla enacted mass layoffs .
But all those losses have been more than erased. As of Dec. 30, even as Tesla’s value is slowly shedding some gains, the stock is up by more than 70% this year.
Here’s how it got there.
The first major boost to Tesla shares came in April after Musk put off a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to focus on his “very heavy Tesla obligations.” That turned out to be code for a surprise visit to Beijing , where he met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
That meeting paved the way for Tesla to chart a path to test its Full Self-Driving technology on state roads. About a month later, the automaker began preparing to register its driver-assist software with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Fast-forward another month and Shanghai began allowing Tesla to carry out limited testing of the software, Reuters reported , although FSD has not yet been cleared by regulators.
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The next aid to Tesla came not from the company but from its investors.
In June, the vast majority of Tesla shareholders — both institutional and retail investors alike — voted to re-approve Musk’s 2018 compensation package, which gives the CEO the ability to buy up to 304 million Tesla shares at a pre-set price of $23.34. Tesla shares haven’t traded below $100 apiece since August 2020.
The vote was both a vote in favor of compensating Musk, who had technically gone unpaid since the plan was approved half a decade earlier, and a sign of confidence in his vision and importance to Tesla. Ahead of the vote, Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm wrote that “motivating someone like Elon requires something different” and that the package would help ensure he doesn’t depart Tesla for “other places.”
“Hot damn, I love you guys,” Musk said on June 13 after taking the stage at the shareholder meeting to a barrage of applause from the crowd.
Unfortunately for Tesla and its investors, the vote did not sway Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who, in January, had shut down Musk’s roughly $56 billion package. After again rejecting the package, McCormick on Dec. 13 opened the 30-day window for Tesla to appeal her ruling to the Delaware Supreme Court.
From June to early November, Tesla stock came crashing back down to Earth as its robotaxi plans and poor second-quarter performance failed to excite investors . Then, Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
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It’s no secret that Trump and Musk have gotten closer this year; Business Insider
reports
that Musk’s planes took 31 flights to or from Palm Beach International Airport this year, beginning in February. Trump’s “Winter White House,”
Mar-a-Lago
, is about five miles from the airport.
The entrepreneur has become an almost constant presence in Trump’s orbit since the election , joining calls and meetings with major CEOs and world leaders. Several of his allies, including Jared Isaacman , David Sacks , and the next head of the Federal Communications Commission, have been selected for roles in the new Trump administration. Musk has also been granted his own task force, nicknamed DOGE, that aims to recommend cuts to federal spending .
The president-elect’s team has reportedly discussed a number of actions that would benefit Musk, including rolling back car-crash reporting rules Tesla opposed and streamlining autonomous vehicle regulations . He may also end the $7,500 consumer tax credits for electric vehicles, a move that would likely hurt Tesla’s sales but has been endorsed by Musk.
Investors’ enthusiasm for Trump and Musk’s bromance pushed the stock to a few all-time highs, including a price of about $470 per share, although those gains have been somewhat shed. Before the election, Tesla shares were trading at about $250 a pop. The stock is now trading at about $420 per share, one of Musk’s favorite numbers .
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