Elon Musk Fan's $1.5 Million Gain Wiped Away

Doug Coyle's son advised him to sell his shares.
A 68-year-old retired landscaper first started investing in Tesla Inc. in 2012 after hearing about Elon Musk. Over the next decade, he put about $100,000 into the stock, and his investment value ballooned to about $3 million at the peak in November 2021.
Then came the plunge, as the pandemic-era tech bubble began to unwind. Coyle's son, who got into trading during the 2020 retail frenzy, implored him to sell. But Coyle held on, believing in Tesla's long term potential. He's now lost about $1.5 million in paper gains.
Coyle, who lives in North Carolina, said that everything just started falling apart.
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Tesla investors who have remained loyal to Musk over the years are facing a brutal collapse. After a decade of gains that saw the company's market value rise to more than $1 trillion and made Musk the world's richest man, the stock dropped 65% last year. This was due to rising interest rates slamming the tech sector and ending the bull run for stocks.
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Tesla has often been referred to as a "meme stock." This is because, back when GameStop Corp. was just a failing video game outlet, a community of Tesla followers (including YouTube channels, podcasts, and Reddit threads) fostered a devoted following who made a fortune betting on the company's clean-energy mission and visionary CEO, Elon Musk.
Now, it seems like Tesla's days of success are over. After Musk's controversial Twitter acquisition, investors are no longer confident in the company. To fund the purchase, Musk sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock, and is now spending more time running the social media site and tweeting controversial opinions on everything from politics to birth rates. Since December 1, Tesla's share price has dropped 37%, and the stock is now trading around $123, down from more than $400 at its peak.
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It's hard to believe how much can change in a year, especially for fans of Elon Musk. In 2018, 49-year-old trader Michael Williams from Utah started buying shares of Tesla. He used complicated options strategies to make supersized bets, and it paid off.
He admits that he was fortunate. By investing in calls, he was able to turn $3,000 in his Robinhood account into “several hundred thousand.” Then he took it a step further, investing about 90% of his 401(k) into Tesla. Soon $40,000 became $800,000.
Williams made some bad trades in the middle of 2021, losing $600,000 and then $200,000. As a result, the value of his 401(k) is down to about $300,000. His Robinhood account now has about $50 in it.
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Williams, who works in telecommunications, sold about half his shares in Tesla but now plans to slowly build his stake again. He still believes in Musk, though he says the billionaire is prone to "doing dumb things."
The stock has declined significantly from its peak in November 2021, falling by around 70%.
Adrian Mora in Denver bought his first Tesla shares in July 2022 after hearing hype around the electric   Semi trucks the company started delivering late last year. The 42-year-old, who works for the Department of Veteran Affairs, had recently sold his house and decided to put the money — about $210,000 — into Tesla. His shares have since dropped about 70% in value, and he’s considering selling what’s left.
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He said that this was his entire life savings. He explained that he comes from a Hispanic family and that he had always heard that his people never get ahead because they never invest. However, he now sees that there is a good reason why his people never invest- because you can lose all of your money.
This year will be crucial for Tesla in terms of determining whether the company can make a turnaround. Karim Jovian, a 29-year-old content creator from New York, started investing in Tesla in 2020 after hearing other social media stars talking about the company's potential. He jumped in after the stock price plunged at the start of the pandemic.
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He is worried about how the drama surrounding Musk will affect the share price, with about 80% of his net worth in the stock now.
"I find the CEO's incessant talking very off-putting," said Jovian. "I'm seriously considering selling my shares in the company."
There are some success stories from Tesla traders who got out at the right time. Doug Coyle's son Dennis bought $20,000 worth of the company's stock following the March 2020 crash, a sum that ballooned to $60,000 by July 2021. So the 36-year-old living in New Jersey decided to take that out and use it for a down payment on a $380,000 home in southern New Jersey that he calls his "Tesla house."
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He has been slowly rebuilding his position since then and plans to invest another $20,000 when the share price falls to $85 or $80.
Like father, like son. His dad Doug has faith in Tesla as a company and takes heart in predictions from Ark Investment Management’s Cathie Wood, a longtime believer in the stock whose firm recently said the price will rise to at least $500 by 2026. However, he does wish that Musk would “keep his mouth shut.”
Coyle said that he is still 100% behind Trump. He said that Trump has made him a wealthy person.