Tesla CEO Elon Musk currently has way too much power and has effectively taken over the federal government, but he isn’t invincible. Tesla, the main source of his wealth, is so overvalued, he’s vulnerable if the stock tanks. We aren’t at that tipping point yet, but public sentiment has already soured, even among owners. If this keeps up, it could spell disaster for Tesla, Wired reports.
Tesla has always had its detractors. Conservatives hated the electric automaker early on because its cars were better for the environment, while car enthusiasts had issues with the Model S’s limited range and lack of charging opportunities in the beginning. Owners, though, were obsessed. They didn’t know the first thing about cars, but they knew their Tesla was the best at everything, and legacy automakers just couldn’t compete. Now, even they’re turning on Musk, and we aren’t just talking about people who only bought a Model Y a few years ago.
Take Jon Gibbs, the founder of Tesla-info, a business he bills as the “world’s biggest Tesla inventory site,” for example. Gibbs recently sold his Tesla for a BMW iX. Then there’s Tim Kraaijvanger, the founder of Tesla360.nl, a Tesla fan site. Like Gibbs, he recently sold his Tesla for a Polestar. Both men told Wired they made their decisions because of Musk’s far-right politics and the fascist salute he gave.
“While Musk might get away with a [Nazi-like] salute in some parts of the world, European markets reject such behavior. World War Two still casts a long shadow,” Kraaijvanger told Wired. He then added, “I received only about half of the [Tesla’s] original new price when selling it, but I do not wish to be associated with [Musk’s] ideology.”
Even though it’s far too late for buying one to mean anything, online sticker seller Matthew Hiller told Wired sales of his “I Bought This Before We Knew Elon Was Crazy” bumper stickers have also taken off. “I have seen massive uplift in sales across Europe. Leading the way are buyers from France, Norway, and the UK,” he told the outlet. Ironically, Hiller’s main focus seems to be fish, but Musk’s actions reportedly convinced him to add a Tesla bumper sticker to his online store where he also says, “I used to want a Tesla until Elon turned into a full-on fascist.”
Hiller wasn’t always a Tesla hater, either, telling Wired, “I went so far as to test drive a Tesla in 2023, but at that time, [Musk’s] purchase of Twitter was complete, and I saw what he was doing to the platform. Skewing the algorithm to favor alt-right voices, promoting disinformation, banning people he didn’t like. Using his influence to wade into politics really turned me off buying a Tesla — it’s a MAGA hat on wheels.”
It isn’t just individual owners protesting Musk’s rise to illegal and unconstitutional power grab. Especially in Europe, several groups are working to ensure that driving a Tesla is more than a little socially unacceptable. From Wired:
On the other hand, driving a Tesla on public roads is becoming increasingly problematic in Europe. Social media is rife with images of Teslas vandalized with Swastikas and expletives. Dealerships are also being targeted. Vandals sprayed graffiti on a Tesla car showroom in The Hague in early February, defacing the building with “No to Nazis” and sweary anti-fascist slogans.
On a grander scale, the English campaign group Led by Donkeys recently teamed up with Germany’s Center for Political Beauty to beam an image of Elon Musk making the inauguration salute onto Tesla’s gigafactory in Berlin, with the word “Heil” projected next to the lit Tesla logo. “This is who Elon Musk really is,” stressed Led by Donkeys across their well-followed social media accounts. “Don’t buy a Tesla” urged the activists.
Startup crowdfunded group Everyone Hates Elon has been distributing anti-Tesla stickers in London with left-wing outlet Novara Media reporting that “hundreds” of Tesla owners have returned to their parked EVs to find them defaced with hard-to-remove roundels featuring a grinning Musk plastered with a Hitler-aping toothbrush mustache and the request not to “buy a Swastikar.”
Companies are getting in on the Tesla boycott, too, particularly in Germany where Musk’s vocal support of the ultra-far-right party Alternative for Germany drew a line in the sand that even the promise of slightly higher profits couldn’t get some businesses to ignore. Drugstore chain Rossmann has about 4,700 locations throughout Europe recently decided to replace all the Teslas in its fleet with EVs from other automakers.
German energy company LichtBlick made a similar decision. And in case there was any doubt as to why the company was getting rid of its Teslas, one executive blatantly said, “Elon Musk’s support of Donald Trump and his recommendation to vote for a right-wing populist and right-wing extremist party … is in no way compatible with LichtBlick’s values.”
Tesla’s European Union sales were reportedly down 13 percent in 2024, with some countries seeing even more drastic sales declines. In January, for example, Germany’s monthly Tesla registrations were down 60 percent year-over-year. Poland has also called for boycotting Tesla, with the country’s sports minister saying, “No normal Pole should buy a Tesla.”
Of course, the EU isn’t Tesla’s only market, and it still sold more than 1.7 million EVs last year, so a sharp decline in European sales won’t necessarily send the electric automaker into bankruptcy. At the same time, the Musk/Trump administration hasn’t even been in power for a full month. If things are already going this badly, it’s unlikely that Tesla’s public image is going to improve outside the small circles of MAGA freaks cheering on the destruction of the federal government. After all, it’s not like either Musk or Trump is capable of being a good person.
As the automaker’s first new vehicle since the Model Y, the Cybertruck was supposed to be the vehicle that saved Tesla. Even in the U.S., though, people just aren’t buying it anymore. There was an early rush of orders, sure, but about a year after the Cybertruck went into production, Tesla is already taking workers off the assembly line because it doesn’t need them building new Cybertrucks. Instead, it’s discounting Cybertrucks it already built in an attempt to boost sales.
Across the board, Tesla’s 2024 sales dropped for the first time in a decade, and the decline in California, the state that essentially put Tesla on the map, has been especially drastic — Model 3 sales were down 36 percent last year. It also doesn’t help that the Model S and Model X barely sell at all, and they’re so ancient, it’s highly unlikely that another update will do much to help sales. What they need is a full redesign, but that’s traditional automaker thinking, and Musk insists Tesla is no longer a car company. It’s an AI/robotics company.
Of course, nothing will really happen until Tesla’s stock price takes a meaningful hit, but it’s still encouraging to see public sentiment sour so quickly. If we keep it up, it’s entirely possible the whole company could collapse and take Musk with it. Maybe it’s just a dream, but you know what? It’s our dream.
There’s also a lot more in the article than we have time to include here, so be sure to head over to Wired to read the whole thing.