I have a confession to make. I am a reformed Elon Musk fanboy. I’m not alone.
Former Musk stans may be the fastest-growing affinity group in the entire world. “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy!” bumper stickers for Teslas make up half of the top 10 best-selling bumper stickers on Amazon.
Tesla sales are crashing in his biggest markets—California, Europe, and China—even as non-Tesla electric vehicle (EV) sales are growing steadily, and Chinese EV sales are in overdrive.
What a surprise to learn that Musk’s focus on making bad politics rather than good cars would be terrible for business. Or that attaching yourself like a tick to a President who denies climate science and hates electric vehicles might just backfire.
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I’ve been a fan of EVs for decades. I wrote an entire book in 2004, The Hype About Hydrogen, explaining why plug-in vehicles were the inevitable winner over hydrogen cars in the race to replace gasoline. Blogging at Climate Progress, I wrote a 2018 article titled “The Electric Car Revolution Is Unstoppable Thanks to Elon Musk.” That article cited a Department of Energy (DOE) history of the electric car, which noted, “Tesla’s announcement and subsequent success spurred many big automakers to accelerate work on their own electric vehicles.”
But I also cited Yale management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who had told the New York Times, “Tesla investors must realize that they have a panicky, erratic, possibly self-destructive C.E.O. at the helm. No C.E.O. is ever this confused and confusing.”
Like a great many of my colleagues back then, I was planning on purchasing a Tesla as my next car. But as Musk became increasingly confused and confusing, I held onto my hybrid-electric Prius, which was “the first turning point” on the road to EVs, as the DOE explained.
Over the course of 2024, Musk doubled down on destroying his own brand. As new buyers increasingly shunned Teslas, embarrassed owners took the unprecedented step of buying bumper stickers trashing the face of the company—calling him “crazy,” saying “Elon ate my cat” or “Anti-Elon Tesla Club” or simply “Elon” in a red circle with a slash through it.
Globally, Tesla sales dipped last year, while overall EV sales jumped 25%. Fourth-quarter Tesla sales slumped in California while non-Tesla EVs surged.
One theory? “Tesla doesn’t advertise, and the only advertising they have right now is Elon,” explained one leading investor in a blistering Bloomberg interview. Bloomberg blames Musk’s embrace of Trump for killing the brand in the Golden State, noting survey scores of the likability and trust surrounding Tesla tanking at the end of last year.
More recently, Tesla sales so far for 2025 crashed 60% in Germany and France—while the overall German electric vehicle market is up 50%.
Again, the reason is no mystery. The New York Times noted last week that sales dropped after Musk began disrupting EU politics. Last month, Musk declared the far-right AfD Party “the best hope for the future of Germany,” and then there is the “gesture” he made “after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, widely interpreted as a Nazi salute,” as the Times put it.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s China-made car sales dropped double digits in January year-over-year while EV sales from China’s BYD were up 47%. China is the second biggest market for Tesla. BYD has surpassed Tesla as the world’s biggest EV maker.
Musk’s problem in China is not his politics. It’s that the homegrown Chinese competition is increasingly fierce—despite his best efforts. “Tesla has cut prices on the Model Y and kept a five-year interest-free loan program in place” through January, The Street reported. “It also revamped the Model Y specifically for the Chinese market but to little success.”
What does this all mean for EVs going forward? Global sales growth will continue to soar, driven by China, but Musk will likely continue to struggle, especially against the surging lower-cost Chinese models.
In the U.S., Musk has continued his anti-Tesla antics, embracing Trump’s pledge to eliminate the $7,500 EV tax credit in July and again in December.
That is crazy. Musk thinks he can make EVs more cheaply than others can, so he would benefit if there were no subsidies. But a November J.D. Power report on “Which Manufacturers Will Be Hurt Most If Tax Credit Ends?” found that “it is noteworthy that Tesla ranks highest among premium segment brands in terms of the influence of tax credits on purchase decision.”
As for EV chargers, where Tesla has also held an advantage, Trump is trying to stop their build-out nationwide. But as the AP explained, it’s unclear he can do much. And the private sector—including Tesla—is continuing to build. But even that’s not good news for Tesla. Ionna, a new joint venture involving GM, Honda, Hyundai, and Toyota, intends to have more than 1,000 charging bays by year’s end and over 30,000 by 2030, which would rival Tesla’s current capability.
The bottom line is that the forecast remains bright for the global EV market, uncertain for the U.S. EV market, but much gloomier for Tesla and its confused and confusing CEO.
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Joseph Romm is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. His forthcoming book is “The Hype About Hydrogen: False Promises and Real Solutions in the Race to Save the Climate,” Island Press, April 2025.