Tesla shares drop below $150, wiping out a year’s gains — three days days after Musk sacked 14k people

Tesla stocks dropped 12.4 per cent this week, hitting their lowest cost in more than a year on Thursday afternoon.

The electric vehicle company’s shares hit $149.93 at the close of business on Thursday. Now an entire year’s gains have been wiped out, the Associated Press reports, as the company faces diminishing sales. On 14 July last year the shares were worth $281.38. They were at $165.08 on 21 April last year.

Since last year, Tesla has cut prices by as much as $20,000 on some models amid slowing demand. The price cuts caused used electric vehicle values to drop and clipped Tesla’s profit margins — making Thursday’s drop in price even more notable. Tesla shares last dipped this low in January 2023.

Prior to this week, the vehicle company’s stock price had already dropped some 25 per cent in 2024, losing $200bn in market value in four months, ABC News reported.

The dip in stock price also comes just days after CEO Elon Musk cut approximately 14,000 Tesla jobs, which made up some 10 per cent of the company’s workforce.

“There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done,” Mr Musk wrote in a memo to employees on Monday. “This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.”

Mr Musk later had to apologise after sending “incorrectly low” severance packages to several employees, CNBC reports.

Two high-level Tesla executives announced their departure the same day: Andrew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and Rohan Patel, senior global director of public policy and business development.

Both executives expressed gratitude to the company when announcing their departure on X.

Meanwhile, Tesla will ask shareholders to reinstate the compensation package for Mr Musk that a Delaware judge rejected earlier this year, a filing with federal regulations on Wednesday revealed. Mr Musk will also ask shareholders to vote on moving the Tesla headquarters from Delaware to Texas.

In January, Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick ruled Musk is not entitled to a landmark compensation package awarded by Tesla’s board of directors.

At the time the package was worth nearly $56bn, but it has since dropped to $44.9bn amid the stock slide, the Associated Press reports.

The Independent has contacted Tesla for comment.