Tesla’s stock dropped 8% at the start of trading Monday following CEO Elon Musk over the weekend starting an independent political party amid his feud with President Trump.
Tesla shares have dropped about $26 each – to $289.75 – since stock markets closed Thursday for the long July Fourth weekend, according he Associated Press. After hitting an all-time high of $479.76 on Dec. 17, 2024, Tesla shares have since lost about 40% of their value.
Musk in late-2024 pubically and financially backed Trump’s winning campaign. He was a special Trump administration appointee when Trump took office, running its Department of Government Efficiency. But over the past few weeks and months, as Musk’s administration appointment came to an end, he and Trump have feuded over such issues as U.S. involvement in Middle East wars and Trump’s mega tax-and-spending bill that he recently signed into law.
On Saturday, Musk announced that he was starting the “America Party,” after conducting a poll on his X platform on whether Americans were tired of the two-party system. About two-thirds answered yes.
“By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party, and you shall have it,” Musk wrote. “When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.”
Musk had previously said he would start the third party if Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed Congress, which it did on Thursday. Musk, who ran Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency effort to find savings in government, demanded the bill cut more federal spending before it was passed. He was rebuffed, and began drifting away from Trump, the man he worked to elect in November.
Trump said Sunday that third parties have “never worked” in the U.S., and Musk’s would just “add to confusion.”
