What happened
Shares of luxury electric car start-up Lucid Group (LCID +0.97%) tumbled 4% through 9:45 a.m. ET in early trading Thursday.
Even in the absence of obvious bad news for the stock, I think I can guess why.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
General Motors. Ford Motor Company. Tesla. Rivian Automotive. What do these four electric car names have in common?
All four of them got specific call-outs from President Joe Biden at his recent "Rebuilding Our Manufacturing to Make More in America" speech at the White House this week. (Indeed, in the case of Tesla, it appears that Tuesday's speech was the first time the president has uttered the word "Tesla" in public.)
In contrast, Lucid Group didn't get a single mention in the speech.
Now what
Now does this mean president Biden hates Lucid, as he was suspected of disliking Tesla (or at least its CEO) because he spent a good long year avoiding mention of the name? Is this a good reason for Lucid investors to panic?
Hardly. The president didn't mention Stellantis in this week's speech, either, and yet his administration issued a joint statement praising electric vehicle (EV) development along with Stellantis (and Ford and GM) just six months ago.
And when you get right down to it, it doesn't really matter much how the president feels about any given electric car company. What matters is whether the car-buying public likes their products, and with Lucid Group sold out of its entire initial production run of $170,000 Dream Edition Air electric luxury sedans, it appears that the public likes Lucid's cars just fine.
So long as this holds true -- and assuming Lucid can figure out a way to translate its popularity into profits -- I wouldn't worry overmuch about who does, and who does not, get name-dropped on the White House lawn.
