JPMorgan Says Tesla's Outlook Is Grim

America's biggest bank is sounding the alarm on Tesla's historic value loss under Elon Musk.

As Forbes reports, JPMorgan said in a new note to clients that it's never seen anything quite like the massive value plummet at Tesla, which lost $127 billion in a single day this week as its CEO's politics become more toxic by the day.

"We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry," JPMorgan analysts wrote, "in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly."

Led by automotive analyst Ryan Brinkman, the note updated the bank's forecast for first-quarter Tesla deliveries from 444,000 to 355,000 — a 20 percent drop that reflects the hundreds of billions of dollars Musk's electric vehicle company has lost in just a few months.

Driving the new analysis is the "acute" effect the boisterous CEO has had on the carmaker as he takes on a "more divisive new role in government" — which is financespeak, essentially, that Musk's politicking is utterly destroying Tesla.

"Mr. Musk's work with the Department of Government Efficiency has proven controversial domestically," Brinkman observed, per Business Insider's write-up, and "while as many members of the political right may be pleased as those on the left are displeased, the effect on Tesla sales seems nevertheless negative."

Brinkman also noted that Musk's company "appears to have the most to lose" from the "shifting regulatory backdrop" occurring under Donald Trump's administration — an ironic reminder that this president is quite hostile to EVs despite purchasing a Tesla in support of his subordinate this week.

In Europe, the analysts wrote, things are even more dire. Between Musk's love affair with Vladimir Putin and subsequent alienation of Ukraine, his anti-NATO posturing, and of course his support for "far-right political parties" — Brinkman's words, not ours – Tesla's new vehicle registrations in January were down 50 percent from the same period in 2024.

Though there have been other massive value drops for Japanese and Korean car companies over "diplomatic disputes" with China, the analysts suggested that things are worse for Tesla because it's an international company that's "not specific to any one nation or geography," BI wrote of the JPMorgan note.

Notably, this analysis comes after Morgan Stanley suggested that Tesla shares are still worth buying and could rebound up to 90 percent, highlighting the shifting goalposts placed upon the Musk-owned company by its boosters.

Then again, maybe it's not exactly a surprise that JPMorgan specifically is bearish on Tesla given that it was, until recently, suing the company over some stocks it sold to the institution a decade prior.

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