Tesla’s not-as-epic-as-expected end to the year

In October, Elon Musk told investors that Tesla was gearing up for “an epic end of year.”

Yet, on Tuesday, the company’s market cap fell below $500B for the first time since 2020. Along with rising interest rates and recessionary fears, factors that could be playing into the downward trend include:

• Demand challenges in China, where Tesla has cut prices, lowered production forecasts, and even bought ads on a local TV channel — something Musk has historically objected to doing, per Bloomberg.
• Musk’s involvement with Twitter, which has investors spooked from reputational and logistical perspectives. (Musk has said he’ll make sure Tesla shareholders benefit from Twitter in the long term.)

Despite these challenges, Tesla remains the dominant EV maker globally, with head starts in consumer EVs, semis, battery production, and charging. The company produced 930k EVs in the first nine months of 2022. For comparison, Ford sold 41.2k.