Shares of Tesla slid again Monday as confidence in Elon Musk’s electric car company continues to disintegrate following a post-election “Trump bump.”

Tesla shares tumbled 15.4%, to $222.15. That’s the lowest Tesla shares have traded since late October, reflecting investors’ newfound pessimism as the automaker’s sales crater around the globe. Monday’s decline, Tesla’s steepest since September 2020, came with Wall Street in the midst of a sell-off caused by uncertainty over the Trump administration’s trade policies.

Many analysts have attributed Tesla’s sagging stock — and auto sales — to Musk’s support of President Donald Trump and other far right candidates around the world.

Musk pumped $270 million into Trump’s campaign heading into the 2024 election, appeared on stage with him and cheered Trump’s victory over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in November. Tesla stock soared to $479 per share by mid-December, but have since tumbled back to earth, losing 40% of their value.

Musk has become the face of the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn government downsizing efforts, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The department has promised massive federal worker layoffs and aims to drastically reduce government spending.

Analysts have said Musk’s shift to right-wing politics doesn’t appear to sit well with potential Tesla buyers, generally perceived to be wealthy, environmentally conscious liberals who have turned to electric vehicles in an attempt to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

Tesla sales are falling in California, the company’s biggest U.S. market, and the company recorded its first annual global sales decline last year. Similarly, Tesla sales plunged 45% in Europe in January, according to research firm Jato Dynamics, even as overall electric vehicle sales rose. The sales numbers were particularly bad in Germany and France.

The latest auto sales figure from China show that Tesla sales there have been nearly halved from February a year ago, although the decline is due increased local competition and not tied to Musk’s politics.

Now, Wall Street analysts are concerned about a drop in Tesla deliveries in the U.S. Analysts at UBS Global Research expect deliveries to fall 5% in the first quarter and full year compared to the same periods for 2024.

Musk’s X suffers series of outages

Hours after a series of outages Monday that left X unavailable to thousands of users, Elon Musk claimed that the social media platform was being targeted in a “massive cyberattack.”

“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk claimed in a post. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Tracing …”

Later on Monday, Musk said on Fox Business Network’s Kudlow that the attackers had “IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area” without going into detail on what this might mean.

Cybersecurity experts quickly pointed out, however, that this doesn’t necessarily mean that an attack originated in Ukraine. Security researcher Kevin Beaumont said on Bluesky that Musk’s claim is “missing a key fact — it was actually IPs from worldwide, not just Ukraine.”

Specifically, he said it was a Mirai variant botnet, which is made of compromised cameras. He said while he is not sure who is behind the attack, it “Smells of APTs — advanced persistent teenagers.”

Allan Liska of the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, meanwhile, pointed out that even if “every IP address that hit Twitter today originated from Ukraine (doubtful), they were most likely compromised machines controlled by a botnet run by a third party that could be located anywhere in the world.”

Delta Airlines slashes outlook for first quarter

Delta Air Lines slashed its first-quarter earnings and revenue outlook Monday, saying that a recent decline in consumer and corporate confidence amid growing uncertainty over the economy is weakening domestic demand.

The company noted that its premium, international and loyalty revenue growth trends remained consistent with expectations.

Shares in the Atlanta-based carrier fell 13.2% in after-hours trading after closing 5.5% lower during the regular session. The stock is down 16.8% so far this year.

In January, Delta released fourth-quarter results that topped Wall Street’s profit and revenue estimates, as the company benefited from strong demand during the crucial holiday period.

But in the weeks since, the economy has begun showing signs of weakening, mostly through surveys showing pessimism.

Disney prevails in copyright dispute

A jury on Monday quickly rejected a man’s claim that Disney’s “Moana” was stolen from his story of a young surfer in Hawaii.

The Los Angeles federal jury deliberated for only about 2 ½ hours before deciding that the creators of “Moana” never had access to writer and animator Buck Woodall’s outlines and script for “Bucky the Surfer Boy.”

With that question settled, the jury of six women and two men didn’t even have to consider the similarities between “Bucky” and Disney’s 2016 hit animated film about a questing Polynesian princess.

Redfin sold to Rocket mortgage lender

Mortgage lender Rocket Cos. has agreed to acquire online real estate brokerage Redfin in an all-stock deal valued at $1.75 billion.

The transaction, announced Monday, gives one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders an in-house network of more than 2,000 real estate agents across 42 states and Redfin’s popular home and rental housing listings platform, which draws nearly 50 million monthly visitors.

The deal values Redfin at $12.50 per share. Shares in Seattle-based Redfin soared 68.5% in morning trading to $9.81 per share, while shares in Detroit-based Rocket Cos. slumped 15%.

— News service reports