Elon Musk Takes the Biggest Hit from Trump’s Tariffs So Far

TOPLINE Nobody lost any more money. Monday, when the stock market reacted to President Donald Trump's tariffs, Elon Musk, Trump's self-described "first buddy" and the world's richest person, saw shares of Musk's electric vehicle business, Tesla, fall as import duties, which the company regards as a drag on profit, awaited.

KEY FACTS

Tesla shares fell 5%, the highest percentage fall among the 46 American public firms worth $200 billion or more.

According to Forbes' real-time billionaires list, the dip reduced Musk's net worth by $11.8 billion, the highest loss of any billionaire. Musk is Tesla's largest individual shareholder, with a 13% stake and an additional 9% stock bonus awaiting appeal.

Tesla shares fell 7.5% this morning, reaching their lowest intraday level since January 2.

The collapse came as part of a tumultuous broader trading session that saw the S&P 500 fall as much as 1.9% in the morning before recovering to a 0.8% daily loss, as the one-month hold on Mexico tariffs brought solace that the impact of tariffs would be less severe than Trump had promised.

Why do tariffs hurt Tesla stock?

Tesla had the unfortunate fortune of being in one of the two major groups of equities that suffered the most on Monday due to tariff prospects: car businesses depending on a symbiotic North American supply network and companies that conduct significant business in China. In a recent earnings conference, Tesla's CFO, Vaibhav Taneja, warned that tariffs could damage the company's profitability as it relies heavily on global parts for its operations. Nvidia, an artificial intelligence semiconductor architect, and Apple, the iPhone maker, both of which derived at least 15% of their income from China, reported losses on Monday.

HUGE NUMBER

$20.9 billion. That's how much revenue Tesla generated from China in 2024, accounting for more than 21% of the company's total sales.

CRUCIAL QUOTE

"Things that inhibit freedom of exchange or distort the market are not good," Musk remarked in May about then-President Joe Biden's tariffs on Chinese EV shipments to the United States.