Musk’s Tesla Stock Is Beating Trump’s DJT Stock. It’s Small Consolation.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Elon Musk has no reason to sing one of Frank Sinatra’s most famous tunes. That’s because it has not been a very good year for Tesla stock. Shares are down more than 25%, making them the worst performer in the Magnificent Seven. But at least it’s beating shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, commonly referred to as DJT.

Tesla stock tumbled another 7% Monday as Musk’s feud with President Donald Trump escalates, and their bromance fades into a distant memory. Musk is now promising to launch the America Party due to his gripes with Trump’s budget bill, which Musk argues is “bankrupting our country with waste & graft.”

Tesla shareholders would presumably be happier if Musk paid more attention to sluggish demand for the company’s electric cars and focused less on politics in Washington. But as bad as Tesla’s stock slide has been this year, Musk could point out it’s even worse for investors in Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of the president’s Truth Social network (which also competes with Musk’s much larger X.)

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, commonly referred to as DJT (the stock’s ticker symbol and president’s initials) have plummeted nearly 45% this year, and have lost more than half their value since Inauguration Day.

Trump’s pro-crypto policies may be helping lift the price of Bitcoin and other digital assets, but they have failed to boost DJT stock. That’s despite the fact that Trump Media has begun to invest directly in Bitcoin, and is planning to launch a Truth Social-branded exchange-traded fund for Bitcoin and ethereum, the world’s second-most valuable cryptocurrency.

At the end of the day, many professional investors likely remain unimpressed with the fundamentals for DJT. The company, which announced Monday the launch of the Truth+ streaming service on major apps globally, continues to lose money as it invests heavily on expansion. DJT posted a net loss of $31.7 million in the first quarter, on sales of only $821,200.

No Wall Street analysts cover Trump Media, despite the fact that the company has now been public for more than a year, having completed its merger with a blank check firm in March 2024.

Also, few major institutions own DJT shares, with most top firms holding the stock mainly in passively managed funds that track indexes of which it is a component, including the Russell 1000 and Russell 3000. President Trump is, indirectly, the largest shareholder with nearly 115 million shares held in a revocable trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr.

For what it’s worth, Trump Media is up 7% over the past five days while Tesla has tumbled around 10% over the same stretch. So DJT investors, while not having the last laugh, are off to a better start of the second half of 2025 than Musk and Tesla supporters.

Still, that’s not saying much since both stocks are missing out on the rally that has lifted the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite to near record highs this year.

Write to Paul R. La Monica at paul.lamonica@barrons.com