Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s well-documented shift to the far right has proven disastrous for the carmaker’s brand.
On Tuesday, the company revealed that its net income had plummeted by an astonishing 71 percent. Sales have plummeted across the globe as consumers are becoming wary of being associated with the highly divisive personality.
And as The Economist points out, it’s not just progressive voters who’ve become turned off from the carmaker’s offerings. Even owners in red states are returning their Teslas in record numbers.
According to dealership inventory tracker MarketCheck, listings of used Teslas have risen by two-thirds since the beginning of 2025, a pattern observed in both left- and right-leaning states.
In other words, the trend suggests Musk’s efforts to cozy up to conservatives may have been a fool’s errand: Republicans have rallied around Tesla and opposed a growing anti-Musk movement, but if they aren’t continuing to buy his cars, they won’t do much good for his flailing automaker.
To experts, strongly affiliating yourself with one extreme end of the political spectrum is a bafflingly self-defeating approach to selling cars.
“When you make your product unattractive to half the market, I promise you, you won’t increase your sales,” automotive research and consulting firm Strategic Vision president Alexander Edwards told the New York Times last month, weeks before Tesla released its first-quarter delivery numbers.
“Democrats are fleeing the brand and saying they won’t consider it in the future, so there is naturally a greater proportion of Republican and independent buyers,” he told the NYT.
Whether Republicans even want to go electric is a pressing question. Charging infrastructure in rural areas of the country remains woefully inadequate, making it a poor fit for many on the right.
“Tesla has gained a large number of Republican fans who love what Mr. Musk is doing, both politically and with the brand of vehicle and with social media,” Edwards told NPR in a separate interview last month. “But they have little interest in an electrified vehicle.”
Put simply, just because fewer Democrats are buying Teslas doesn’t mean Republicans are picking up the slack.
Besides alienating half of the country, Musk’s carmaker is also facing major competition that has been rapidly catching up with the brand. BYD in China and General Motors in the US are rising to the occasion, as The Economist points out.
While Tesla’s latest earnings don’t bode well for the company’s future, the EV market as a whole is rallying thanks to a slew of lower-cost, longer-range models enticing more consumers. Analysts expect US EV sales to grow three percent this year, despite a volatile political landscape.
Musk is “rapidly losing the advantages in range, tech, value and convenience that drove people to Tesla,” Paren chief analyst Loren McDonald told the NYT. “For a lot of people, it’s time to move on and try something new.”
The numbers tell a damning story. Tesla’s deliveries dropped by 13 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. In the US, sales fell by almost nine percent — despite total EV sales rising 11 percent over the same period.
Yet instead of heeding the words of spooked investors and getting out of politics, Musk has dug in his heels — which could spell disaster for Tesla.
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