NEW YORK – Tesla Inc.’s stock is in a freefall. Its sales are plunging around the world. Even its most avid Wall Street bulls are turning cautious. But one group is buying the electric-vehicle maker’s shares like never before: CEO Elon Musk’s fans. 

The company has long had an ardent fan base of individual investors who hang on Musk’s every word on X, the social-media platform he owns. They analyse Tesla in great detail in online forums and largely function as a hype crew for the stock.

But their current level of enthusiasm is staggeringly high, even by recent historical standards. Individual investors have been net buyers of Tesla shares for 13 straight sessions through March 20, pumping US$8 billion into the stock, retail trading data from JPMorgan Chase’s global equity derivatives strategist Emma Wu shows. That’s the biggest inflow over any buying streak since 2015, which is as far back as the data goes.

What makes the retail buying notable is Tesla’s share price has sunk 17 per cent over this time, wiping out more than US$155 billion from its market value.

“I’ve missed several opportunities with Tesla in the past. Now that the stock has dropped significantly, could this be a good time to invest?,” wrote the author of a post on the Reddit forum for Tesla traders. Another said they were “very happy” to buy the stock at a US$225-US$230 range. The shares closed up 5.3 per cent at US$248.66 on March 21.

“Tesla made some rookie to mid-stage public market investors extremely wealthy, a lot of people became millionaires because of this stock,” said Mr Nicholas Colas, co-founder at DataTrek Research. “People don’t forget that. And they will come back to a stock again and again if they feel it has been beaten up.”

Tesla shares have been on a steep slide since mid-December when it touched an all-time high fueled by optimism from Donald Trump’s election victory. But that euphoria vanished, with the stock retreating more than 50 per cent from its Dec 17 record, making it the second-biggest decliner in the S&P 500 Index this year.

The rout has been so brutal that Mr Musk sought to reassure Tesla employees during an all-hands meeting on March 20, likely sparking the rebound in the shares the following day.

What’s become clear is what Wall Street thought would be a boon for the company – Mr Musk’s prominent role in the Trump administration as the head of the Department of Gove...