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Is Tesla the next Twitter? You might think so, given data from Europe’s car manufacturers group today showing that new car registrations of Teslas fell a whopping 50% in Europe last month (including the U.K., the decline was 45%). Buyers deserted Tesla as Europe’s electric vehicle market overall rose 34% in the same period. Tesla’s sharp market share decline came the same month that Tesla CEO Elon Musk was parading around Germany endorsing that country’s far-right political party, the AfD. Way to win friends and influence people!
Tesla’s European sales decline is reminiscent of the revenue slide that devastated Twitter after Musk bought it in late 2022, which scared off most of the advertisers. The revenue of the company, now called X, last year was about half what it had been before Musk’s acquisition. Sure, we may be jumping the gun in comparing Tesla to X’s fate as a business. It’s only one month of sales, and Europe is far from Tesla’s biggest market—that would be the U.S., which accounted for 49% of revenue last year. But it’s not hard to imagine the company will soon report a severe decline for the U.S. as well, given how polarizing Musk’s DOGE antics and closeness to President Donald Trump are.
While plenty of Americans are Trump fans and also may cheer cuts to the government bureaucracy, how many of them are Tesla buyers? More to the point, Musk is buddying up to Trump even though the president is an avowed enemy of electric cars—going so far as to turn off all the electric car charging stations at government buildings. He’s also expected to get rid of tax incentives for electric car purchases.
It’s little wonder, then, that Tesla stock fell 8% on Tuesday and for the year so far is down 25%. It has lost most of the ground it gained in a rally after Trump’s election, when it jumped 90% in about five weeks. Investors had originally anticipated Musk’s ties to Trump would help Musk’s businesses, but as far as Tesla is concerned, the opposite seems to be true. And it’s not just about Trump: Musk himself appears to have become a liability for Tesla. Will Tesla’s board do anything?
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