Tesla Stock Falls After Elon Musk Announces Plans to Close Brick-and-Mortar Stores The electric car company's stock fell by almost 8 percent on Friday.
"We will be closing some stores, some reduction in headcount as a result," CEO Elon Musk said during an after-hours Thursday call with reporters. In the call, Musk also said that Tesla won't make a profit during the first quarter. "I wish there was some other way. Unfortunately, it will entail a reduction in force on the retail side. There's no way around it."
Musk also said, "We do think that profitability in Q2 is likely." However, that spark of optimism wasn't enough to lift Tesla stock on Friday, which fell by 25.18 points (-7.87 percent).
Tesla was the biggest loser on a relatively positive day for the Entrepreneur Indexâ„¢. The exchange was up by 0.60 percent today, while other indexes like the S&P 500 and Dow 30 were down.
That success is due in large part to Gap Inc.'s massive rise on the day. The clothing store announced that it intends to split into two companies -- one for Old Navy, the other primarily for Gap and Banana Republic.
Board Chairman Robert Fisher said in a statement, "It's clear that Old Navy's business model and customers have increasingly diverged from our specialty brands over time, and each company now requires a different strategy to thrive moving forward."
That announcement led to Gap stock climbing by 4.13 points (16.26 percent), the best on the day. However, the day was positive for most stocks on the Entrepreneur Indexâ„¢. A majority of the 60 stocks were up on the day, including Alphabet Inc. (1.88 percent), Amazon.com (1.96 percent) and Facebook (0.51 percent). Even many of the stocks that fell on the day saw minimal declines, including Estee Lauder Company (-0.03 percent), Netflix (-0.26 percent) and PACCAR Inc. (-0.10 percent).
The Entrepreneur Indexâ„¢ collects the top 60 publicly traded companies founded and run by entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurial spirit is a valuable asset for any business, and this index recognizes its importance, no matter how much a company has grown. These inspirational businesses can be tracked in real time on Entrepreneur.com.
