{"id":26216,"date":"2025-04-02T17:43:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T17:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/tesla-sales-unexpectedly-plunge-after-elon-musk-backlash\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T17:43:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T17:43:39","slug":"tesla-sales-unexpectedly-plunge-after-elon-musk-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/tesla-sales-unexpectedly-plunge-after-elon-musk-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla sales unexpectedly plunge after Elon Musk backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Lily Jamali<\/span><\/p>\n

North America Technology Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

Reporting from<\/svg>San Francisco<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"GettyGetty<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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Tesla sales have plummeted to their lowest level in three years after a backlash against its boss Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

The electric car maker delivered almost 337,000 electric vehicles in the first three months of 2025, a 13% drop from a year ago.<\/p>\n

Tesla shares tumbled in early trading on Wednesday after the release of the unexpectedly low sales numbers.<\/p>\n

The cars face increasing competition from Chinese firm BYD, but experts believe Musk’s controversial role in the Trump administration have had an effect too<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The firm has blamed the drop on the transition to a new version of its most popular car.<\/p>\n

However some analysts have pointed the finger at Musk himself.<\/p>\n

“These numbers suck,” Tesla shareholder Ross Gerber of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management wrote on X.<\/p>\n

“The brand is broken and may not be fixable”, added Mr Gerber, who has previously called for the board to remove Musk as CEO.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Watch: Tesla vehicles and dealerships vandalised throughout US<\/figcaption><\/p>\n

‘Tesla takedown’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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There have been protests and boycotts around the world prompted by Musk’s outspoken and controversial political involvement. <\/p>\n

He has been heading up President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative to cut federal spending and slash the government workforce.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Politico reported<\/a> that Trump had told his inner circle Musk would be stepping back from the administration in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the report was published, Tesla’s share price turned positive.<\/p>\n

The Tesla boss is the world’s richest man and contributed more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump get elected in November.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Mr Musk poured millions into a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, supporting former Republican attorney general Brad Schimel who was soundly defeated on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This dealership in Berlin was defaced<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The backlash against Mr Musk has included “Tesla Takedown” protests<\/a> at Tesla dealerships across the US and in Europe.<\/p>\n

Tesla vehicles have also been vandalised, and Trump has said his administration would charge people who deface Teslas with “domestic terrorism.” <\/p>\n

Musk’s stewardship of his businesses, including Tesla, has been called into question.<\/p>\n

In an recent interview, he admitted he was running his enterprises “with great difficulty,” adding: “Frankly, I can’t believe I’m here doing this.”<\/p>\n

Tesla shares have lost more than a third of their value over the last year.<\/p>\n

“We are not going to look at these numbers with rose colored glasses… they were a disaster on every metric,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

“The more political [Musk] gets with DOGE the more the brand suffers, there is no debate.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Lily Jamali North America Technology Correspondent Reporting fromSan Francisco Getty Tesla sales have plummeted to their lowest level in three years after a backlash against its boss Elon Musk. The electric car maker delivered almost 337,000 electric vehicles in the first three months of 2025, a 13% drop from a year ago. Tesla shares tumbled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[2487,969,91,563,225,1219,5864],"class_list":["post-26216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-backlash","tag-elon","tag-musk","tag-plunge","tag-sales","tag-tesla","tag-unexpectedly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26218,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26216\/revisions\/26218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}