President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced 25% tariffs on "all cars not made in the United States" and told the press that this could be a "net neutral" or "may be good" for Tesla. However, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk disagreed with the president's assessment. Tesla stock advanced Thursday.
The White House announced the move late Wednesday, saying the tariffs, effective April 2, will be added on top of any duties already in place. The new Trump tariffs cover autos and some parts and components, including engines, transmissions and power trains. Autos assembled in Canada and Mexico will only face tariffs on non-U.S. parts.
"It could be a net neutral or they may be good. He has a big plant in Texas, he has a big plant in California and anybody who has plants in the United States, it's going to be good for, in my opinion," Trump said Wednesday.
However, Musk posted to X on Wednesday that Tesla would be significantly impacted by Trump's 25% tariffs on all foreign-made autos.
"Important to note that Tesla is not unscathed here. The tariff impact on Tesla is still significant," Musk wrote on X.
"To be clear, this will affect the price of parts in Tesla cars that come from other countries. The cost impact is not trivial," Musk said in a separate X post.
The Auto Stocks Getting Hit By Trump's Tariffs
Meanwhile, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives writing late Wednesday said that "Tesla would be less exposed to tariffs as their production and assembly (for U.S. vehicles) is all in the U.S."
Canaccord Genuity analyst George Gianarikas told Yahoo Thursday morning that "relative to the rest of the industry" Tesla will be "pretty well insulated" from the tariffs.
"There will be an impact without a doubt, depending on what it is, but Tesla for example makes their vehicles in the United States for the United States," Gianarikas said.
The Latest For Tesla In the Trump Trade War
The 25% tariffs come soon after Canada late on Tuesday froze $43 million in what it termed "suspicious" EV rebates for Tesla. It also excluded the U.S. EV giant from the country's future EV rebates, explicitly as retaliation for Trump tariffs.
Tesla recently warned that it could be singled out by other countries in a Trump trade war.
"Past U.S. special tariff actions have thus increased costs to Tesla for vehicles manufactured in the United States, and increased costs for those same vehicles when exported from the United States, resulting in less competitive international marketplace for U.S. manufacturers," the company wrote.
Tesla Stock Performance
TSLA advanced as high as 291.85, but pared those gains, edging up 0.4% to 273.13 during stock market action on Thursday as Trump's 25% auto tariffs hit the market.
Meanwhile, Tesla stock fell 5.8% on Wednesday, back below the 200-day moving average after reclaiming that level a day earlier.
The stock is trying to snap a string of nine consecutive weekly declines. Despite ending last week down, Tesla stock is recovering after dropping to its March 11 low of 217.02. Entering Thursday's stock market trading, TSLA was up around 25% since hitting its March low, but down 33% in 2025.
Investors should generally avoid stocks below the 200-day or even their 50-day line.
Tesla stock has a 21-day average true range of 7.39%. The ATR metric is available on IBD's MarketSurge charting tool. It gauges the characteristic breadth of a stock's behavior. Stocks that tend to make large jumps or dives in daily action, the kind that can trigger sell rules and shake investors out of a stock, have a high ATR. Stocks that tend to make more incremental moves have lower ATRs.
In the current market, IBD suggests stocks with ATRs of 3% or below.
Tesla stock ranks third in the 35-stock IBD Auto Manufacturers industry group. The stock has a 72 Composite Rating out of a best-possible 99. Shares also have a 70 Relative Strength Rating and an 84 EPS Rating.
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Please follow Kit Norton on X @KitNorton for more coverage.
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