Tesla, Elon Musk’s most lucrative business, is facing a major slump. The electric vehicle maker is seeing a plunge in sales globally, and February marked Tesla’s worst month on the stock market since 2022.
There are a number of factors that could be contributing to Tesla’s woes. But industry analysts point to Musk’s emergence as a right-wing extremist meddling in politics across the West as a likely factor.
Tesla’s difficulties underscore how Musk’s political ambitions — many of which benefit him financially — are likely undermining some of the source of his power. The slump in Tesla sales also suggests that a new frontier for activism against the richest man in the world could be forming around a simple idea: Don’t buy his stuff.
Activists across Europe are linking Musk's politics to Tesla ownership and encouraging consumer boycotts.
In California, Tesla’s biggest market in the U.S., its sales dropped almost 8% in the fourth quarter of 2024, and 12% for the year. Bloomberg News reported that in recent months, trust and likability sentiment toward Tesla has dropped to its lowest point since at least 2023 and estimated that Musk’s role in the U.S. election likely cost him business in California last year. Musk’s favorability plummeted in the fall of 2024, with just 6% of Democrats and 31% of independents surveyed in a September NBC News poll reporting positive feelings about Musk.
Tesla is also taking a notable bruising abroad. Axios reports that “Tesla sales are down 71% in Germany this year, 45% in Norway, 44% in France and 44% in Spain, according to registration data reported by Electrek.” The downturn in Germany is particularly notable because Germany has the largest electric vehicle market in Europe, and because it’s a country where Musk has been intervening in national politics particularly aggressively. Ahead of Germany’s February election, Musk advocated for the far-right Alternative for Germany party and said at a virtual event for the party that there’s “too much of a focus on past guilt” in that country.
Though Tesla also saw a 49% dive in sales in China in February, compared to a year earlier, observers of the electric car sector say that’s more likely explained by increased competition from inexpensive Chinese competitors.
While rising competition and the decision by some consumers to wait for a new Tesla model could be playing a role in the dip in sales abroad, Musk’s increasingly polarizing, swashbuckling behavior as a global activist can’t be dismissed. It’s a particularly plausible theory given that, as The New York Times reports, activists across Europe are linking Musk's politics to Tesla ownership and encouraging consumer boycotts.
Tesla, once a brand associated with stewardship of the environment and boasting a clear liberal constituency, is becoming stigmatized as an emblem of right-wing extremism. People disgruntled with Musk in the U.S. and Europe are vandalizing Tesla charging stations and dealerships and cars, often with messages likening Musk to a Nazi in the wake of his gesture at a rally in January that resembled a Nazi salute. At a Carnival parade in New Orleans on Monday evening, four Tesla Cybertrucks “took a pummeling of beads, boos and barbs from paradegoers,” a local newspaper reported, noting that “at least one shattered window was reported before each Cybertruck bailed.”
Owners of Teslas who disapprove of Musk’s political turn are placing “I Bought This Before We Knew Elon Was Crazy” bumper stickers on their cars, which may also serve as a way to ward off potential vandals.
Tesla is still by far the most popular electric vehicle maker in the U.S. But as Musk’s political identity begins to outstrip his identity as a businessman, the company could see its fortunes change for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of its cars.
