Though it ended 2024 on a particularly strong note and rising well above $400 in the final quarter of the year, Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) entered 2025 with several concerning developments.
Given the situation, it may not be surprising that company insiders were quick to begin selling TSLA shares. Specifically, Director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson and CFO Vaibhav Taneja hardly waited for the holidays to end before offloading approximately $44 million worth of Tesla stock, as detected by Finbold’s Insider trading radar.
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Wilson-Thompson, generally a prolific seller, raised approximately $41 million on January 8 by reducing her position by 100,000 shares at an average price of $411.63. Taneja, despite trading on the same day, got a slightly better average price of $413.56 for his 7,000 shares and raised just under $3 million.
Why investors are uncertain about Tesla stock performance in 2025
While the insider activity of the two executives is not particularly odd, apart from how quickly it came in 2025, Tesla gave ample room for concern to its investors in recent weeks.
To begin with, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle (EV) maker posted its first-ever year-over-year (YoY) deliveries decreased as it, having shipped 495,570 EVs in the fourth quarter (Q4), underperformed compared to forecasts.
Indeed, in 2024, the company delivered nearly 1.8 million, and in 2023, the number stood at 495,570. Such results were made worse by the low estimates for shipped Cybertrucks – Tesla’s big product just before the firm made a pivot to the ‘Cybercab’ and the ‘Optimus’ humanoid robot.
Compounding the delivery report, Elon Musk’s EV maker also filed for a recall of more than 200,000 vehicles already in January, starting the year with, again, ample room for quality control concerns.
Still, it is worth pointing out that tech-heavy cars tend to need a lot of maintenance and that the majority of the big recalls were so-called over-the-air (OTA) updates: software patches.
Looking ahead, the latest reports, possibly paired with the incredible rally in the final trimester of 2024, caused some to view the upcoming earnings report with dread, with Gordon Johnson – admittedly the biggest and most consistent Tesla bear – forecasting a veritable bloodbath once it is published.
Tesla share price analysis
The dance between the stock market performance and the dread stemming from the release and upcoming reports is well-reflected TSLA stock’s price performance.
At press time on January 13, the shares are well above their pre-election lows as they stand at $387.30, but have also erased all their gains since about December 6.
Additionally, Tesla’s equity has declined a substantial 16.35% in the last 30 days but retains, for the time being at least, its strong 12-month performance as it is 76.12% in the green in the time frame.
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Finally, the losses in 2025 have, so far, been contained as TSLA shares declined 4.10% since New Year’s Day.
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