Musk 'Eroding Tesla EV Sales', But do Bigger Things Lie Ahead?

The erratic behaviour and “shift toward far-right politics” of Elon Musk is now seen as a factor undermining the brand that helped make him the world’s richest man.

Tesla’s sales and market share plunged over the first half of this year in Silicon Valley and other parts of California, where its electric vehicles have historically been popular, according to a report by InsideEVs, which said that Musk is polarizing his customer base and “tarnishing the empire he built.”

And his latest controversial remark on X, formerly Twitter, may have accelerated this process.

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Shortly after news reports on Monday of an apparent second attempt to assassinate Donald Trump, the former US president and current Republican presidential nominee, Musk responded to a person asking “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”

He posted: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔.”

It was a remark that, as Wired noted, “could be interpreted as a call to murder President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.”

After a backlash, Musk deleted the post, which Secret Service officials said they were aware of, and suggested that his remark was just a joke that fell flat.

“Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on 𝕏,” he wrote, adding, “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”

And while it may have led more people may question his judgement, the billionaire’s EV business appears to be paying a price for his ownership of the social media outlet and eagerness to share this thoughts.

‘Affecting the brand?’

“It’s unquestionable that this cloud of behaviour has affected the [Tesla] brand,” Mario Natarelli, managing partner at branding agency MBLM was quoted as telling Automotive News.

“Tesla was the EV leader, the most innovative, represented by a visionary… Now people are selling their Teslas, ashamed to even drive them because of the association with him.”

While Musk’s Cybertruck is now the best-selling EV truck in the US, sales of Tesla’s popular Models 3 and Y appear to be declining, according to InsideEVs, at a time when other EV brands enjoyed “soaring popularity”, with sales shooting up 33% in the first half.

The Civic Science website said “Tesla favourability reached a low of 18% in July” among US adults who lean toward the Democrat Party or are liberal, as of July 23, down from 39% in January.

“Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to purchase an EV. Democrats are also more likely to associate Elon Musk with the brand, and to be less interested in Tesla as the result,” it said.

Or the world’s first trillionaire?

Normally, that might be a problem, but for Musk, with wealth already topping $250 billion, who also owns SpaceX and has many other developments in play, it doesn’t appear to be a concern.

Indeed, observers say Tesla’s focus is shifting from cars to robotics and artificial intelligence.

And Musk – ever the visionary – has reportedly claimed that robotaxis and humanoid robots could help him become the world’s first trillionaire.

Informa Connect Academy, a UK training group that describes itself as an arm of a FTSE 100 corporation, appears to share that view.

It has said that Tesla is one of five companies likely to pass the $1 trillion market value level next year and that Musk could be the world’s first trillionaire in just a few years time – because his wealth is supposedly rising by an astonishing 110% a year.

Informa Connect has Musk at the top of a list of 28 multi-billionaires who it claims “will probably become trillionaires sooner or later.”

That’s a pretty wild prediction. Perhaps it really is time for a tax on billionaires.