Are Elon Musk’s political antics contributing to Tesla’s global sales slide

Elon Musk has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in the past few months, from his alleged Nazi salute to his backing of the Donald Trump campaign and controversially taking charge of the new US Department of Government Efficiency.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. His interference in European politics has not gone down well among many on the Old Continent.

But are the South African-born billionaire’s increasingly right-leaning antics contributing to a drop in sales of his Tesla electric car products?

Tesla’s European sales dropped by a massive 50% year-on-year in January 2025, although this could partly be due to lower stock levels after an intense push in the fourth quarter.

Worryingly, German sales were down almost 60 percent versus January 2024, despite an uptick in electric car registrations in that market. Many put this down to Musk backing the far-right AfD party ahead of Germany’s February 23 elections, as well as his many insults directed at the country’s political leaders, AFP reported.

Speaking of Tesla’s sales decline in that country, Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the Automotive Research Institute said: "Nobody wants to be associated with it... Tesla and Musk are almost inextricably linked."

As can be expected, Musk’s gesture at Trump’s inauguration, perceived as Nazi-like, did not resonate well in Germany, regardless of what the intention behind it may have been.

Tesla's global sales slide

In 2024, Tesla’s annual global sales dropped for the first time ever, and although the decline over 2023 was a mere 1%, it stands in stark contrast to the growth forecasts that drove the electric carmaker’s surging share prices that shook the automotive world in the past few years. Consider that Tesla saw global sales growth of 38% in 2023 and 40% in 2022.

The dip in sales, however, could also be seen as a sign of rising electric vehicle competition in China and other markets.

“It’s still too early to see any (Musk backlash) in the Tesla numbers,” Stephanie Valdez Streaty, an analyst and director at Cox Automotive, told CNN.

“We can’t pinpoint that polarization is causing people to buy or avoid a Tesla.”

However it’s interesting to note data from S&P Global Mobility, showing that the percentage of repeat Tesla buyers in the so-called Blue States (which predominantly support the Democratic Party) fell by 7% year-on-year to 65% in the final quarter of 2024. The Red (Republican) states, meanwhile, saw a slight uptick from 47.6% to 48.2%.

On top of that, there is a group of TikTokers called ‘Cybertruck Hunters’ who go up behind Tesla Cybertruck bakkies and project rude or funny messages onto the tailgate, recording them for their channel of course.

So far they’ve projected messages like:

“I wonder if everyone who’s passing me thinks I am Nazi.”

“Think of it (the Cybertruck) as a small pen*s enlarger.”

“Don’t hate me. Musk sold me a $h!tbox.. And the f*@ker stole my social security number”.

It seems US social media users simply cannot separate cars from politics. But it remains to be seen just how this will translate into significant sales losses going forward.

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