Tesla Faces Worst Month In 15 Years, Cybertruck Recalls, Tariffs and Consumer Pushback Test Elon Musk’s Empire

• Tesla is on track for the worst monthly stock plunge in its history
• The Elon Musk-led company has experienced decreasing sales, increased scrutiny, and boycotts.
• Over 40,000 Cybertrucks have been recalled in the U.S. over faulty panels.

March is shaping up to be Tesla’s worst month in history, with its stock price down 50% from its all-time high just months ago.

The electric vehicle giant is grappling with slowing global sales, ongoing hurdles in its autonomous driving efforts, and increasing public scrutiny against CEO Elon Musk and his new ties to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the frequency of vandalism and protests against Tesla owners and stores has been growing across the U.S. and Europe.

Tesla’s Worst Month in Fifteen Years

On Tuesday, March 18, Tesla’s shares fell by as much as 7%, extending their losing streak to nine consecutive weeks.

The stock has now dropped more than 50% from its mid-December peak, marking a greater decline than Tesla’s previous worst month on record in December 2022, when shares fell almost 37%.

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

Tesla has also been suffering a significant drop in sales, with Europe experiencing a 50% drop in January compared to the previous year.

Cybertruck Recall

On Thursday, March 20, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a recall affecting over 46,000 trucks with models between 2024 and 2025, Reuters reported .

The recall marks the latest in a string of callbacks for the truck since last year.

This time, the issue is with an exterior trim panel delaminating and detaching from the vehicle, which increases the risk of road hazards and crashes.

Tesla said it would replace all of the panels free of charge.

In 2024, Tesla made up 21% of all U.S. recalls in the first three quarters of the year, according to research from BizzyCar.

Another Loss For Tesla’s Self-Driving Ambitions

Tesla’s journey to living up to its Full-Self Driving (FSD) name has been rocky, marked by constant regulatory hurdles and ambitious promises.

Government agencies such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have launched investigations into Tesla over safety concerns and misleading terminology.

Critics of the system argue that naming the system “Full-Self Driving” creates a false sense of security, leading some drivers to misuse it by taking their attention from the road.

Several high-profile crashes involving Tesla’s vehicles have drawn negative attention to the limitations of Tesla’s autonomous driving.

Well-known YouTuber Mark Rober has uploaded a video showing Tesla failing a worryingly simple self-driving test.

Rober, who has over 65 million subscribers, tested Tesla’s autonomous features by seeing if it could decipher a screen with a replica of the road behind it.

The vehicle’s self-driving cameras could not detect the wall and crashed directly through it.

Harmed by Trump’s Tariffs

The electric vehicle company warned that countries retaliating to Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs could significantly harm Tesla and other U.S. companies.

In an unsigned letter to the U.S. trade representative, Tesla said it was concerned that U.S. exporters were “exposed to disproportionate impacts” from countries retaliating to the tariffs.

It is unclear if Musk, a close ally of Trump and a key figure in the White House’s push to reduce the size of its staff, wrote the letter.

Tesla said it was looking for domestic suppliers to become less reliant on foreign exports.

“None the less,” the letter read, “even with aggressive localization of the supply chain, certain parts and components are difficult or impossible to source within the US.”

Tesla Boycott

On Wednesday, March 19, it was reported that a website named Dogequest had published information about Tesla owners in the U.S.

The website’s emergence coincided with a massive rise in protests and attacks against Tesla’s owners and stores.

In early March, a woman was arrested for attacking a Tesla dealership in Colorado with an incendiary device.

Two more dealerships were also targeted with gunshots, according to the New York Post.