Doug Coyle’s son told him to sell the shares.
The 68-year-old retired landscaper first started investing in Tesla Inc. in 2012 after hearing about Elon Musk, who wasn’t nearly as famous at the time. Over the next decade he put about $100,000 into the stock, and his investment value ballooned to about $3 million at the peak in November 2021.
Then came the plunge, as the pandemic-era tech bubble began to unwind. Coyle’s son, who got into trading during the 2020 retail frenzy, implored him to sell. But he held on, believing in Tesla’s long term potential. He’s now lost about $1.5 million in paper gains.
“It just all started falling down,” said Coyle, who lives in North Carolina.
Tesla investors who stayed loyal to Musk over the years are facing a brutal collapse. After a decade of gains that catapulted the company’s market value to more than $1 trillion and made Musk the world’s richest man, the stock dropped 65% last year, with rising interest rates slamming the tech sector and ending a bull run for stocks.
In some ways, Tesla was the original meme stock. Back when GameStop Corp. was just a failing video game outlet, an ecosystem of YouTube channels, podcasts and Reddit threads from amateur analysts fostered a devoted community of Musk followers who made a fortune betting on the company’s clean-energy mission and visionary chief executive.
Now, those high-flying days appear to be over. Musk’s controversial Twitter acquisition has rattled investor confidence. He’s sold billions worth of Tesla stock to fund the purchase, and is spending more time running the social media site and tweeting controversial takes on everything from politics and birth rates to the war in Ukraine. Tesla’s share price has slipped 37% since Dec. 1 and the stock is now trading around $123, down from more than $400 at the top.
Down to Earth
For Musk fans, it’s hard to believe the difference a year makes. Michael Williams, a 49-year-old trader in Utah, first started buying the company’s shares in 2018 and used complicated options strategies to make supersized bets.
He admits he got lucky. Using calls, he turned about $3,000 in his Robinhood account into “several hundred thousand.” Then he took it a step further, piling about 90% of his 401(k) into Tesla. Soon $40,000 became $800,000.
It didn’t last. In the middle of 2021, Williams made a couple of bad trades, first losing $600,000 and then $200,000. Now, the value of his 401(k) is down to about $300,000. And that Robinhood account? It has about $50 in it.
Williams, who works in telecommunications, has sold about half his shares in Tesla, but now plans to slowly build his stake again. He still believes in Musk, though he says the billionaire is prone to “doing dumb things.”
Final Straws
Adrian Mora in Denver bought his first Tesla shares in July 2022 after hearing hype around the electric Semi trucks the company started delivering late last year. The 42-year-old, who works for the Department of Veteran Affairs, had recently sold his house and decided to put the money — about $210,000 — into Tesla. His shares have since dropped about 70% in value, and he’s considering selling what’s left.
“This is my whole life savings,” he said. “I come from a Hispanic family, and you always hear that my people never get ahead because we never invest. But now I see there’s a good reason my people never invest — you can lose all your money.”
For Karim Jovian in New York, this year will be crucial in determining whether Tesla can mount a turnaround. The 29-year-old content creator started investing in the car company in 2020 after hearing other social media stars talking up Tesla and its potential. He jumped in after the stock plunged at the start of the pandemic.
With about 80% of his net worth in the stock now, he’s worried about all the drama surrounding Musk and how that will affect the share price.
“He talks too much, it’s like, ‘Please shut up,’” Jovian said about the CEO. “I’m definitely considering selling.”
Loyal Fans
Of course, there are some success stories from Tesla traders who got out at the right time. Doug Coyle’s son Dennis bought $20,000 worth of the company’s stock following the March 2020 crash, a sum that ballooned to $60,000 by July 2021. So the 36-year-old living in New Jersey decided to take that out and use it for a down payment on a $380,000 home in southern New Jersey that he calls his “Tesla house.”
He’s been slowly building back his position since then, and plans to put another $20,000 in when the share price drops to $85 or $80.
Like father, like son. His dad Doug has faith in Tesla as a company and takes heart in predictions from Ark Investment Management’s Cathie Wood, a longtime believer in the stock whose firm recently said the price will rise to at least $500 by 2026. However, he does wish that Musk “would keep his mouth shut.”
“I’m still behind it 100%,” Coyle said. “He's made me a wealthy person.”
Bloomberg News provided this article. For more articles like this please visit
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