Musk Suffers New Blow as Tesla Sales Drop for Second Quarter
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Elon Musk's Tesla reported another decline in deliveries in the second quarter, deepening the electric vehicle company's slump after a slower start to the year.
Newsweek reached out to Tesla's press team via email for comment.
Why It Matters
Musk, once a vocal supporter and informal adviser to President Donald Trump, has stepped away from his government role leading the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and returned to focus on his companies, including Tesla.
Musk and Trump's public split and fallout included character jabs as well as policy disagreements, including Trump's prized "big, beautiful" bill, which seeks to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent while cutting Medicaid funding and ending electric vehicle tax credits. Musk enjoys numerous lucrative contracts with the government across companies, including SpaceX, which Trump has threatened to revoke.
The drop in sales and deliveries may signal an extended consumer backlash against the Tesla brand. Protests and vandalism targeting Tesla, which began in response to Musk's time in the Trump administration, have continued since his departure.
What To Know
On Wednesday, Tesla reported its second-quarter production and delivery figures, producing 410,244 vehicles, primarily Model 3 and Model Y cars, and delivering 384,122. Deliveries are considered a proxy for sales.
The figures are about 14 percent lower than in the second quarter of 2024, when Tesla produced 410,831 vehicles and delivered 443,956.
The second-quarter findings are also lower than those of the first quarter of 2025, which reported 362,615 vehicles produced and 336,681 deliveries, representing a decline of approximately 13 percent from the first quarter of 2024. The first-quarter slump coincided with Musk's formal affiliation with the president and his appointment to the DOGE position.
A Tesla car recharges at a Tesla charging station in Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 24, 2017.
A Tesla car recharges at a Tesla charging station in Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 24, 2017.
AP Photo/Chuck Burton
This quarter, production and deliveries increased from the first quarter but remained below the levels of a year earlier.
The numbers represent a longer three-year decline in sales. In Europe, Tesla sales have dropped notably, with the company selling 8,729 vehicles in the European Union last month, a 40.5 percent decrease from the 14,682 sold in May 2024, according to data released on Wednesday by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Musk has also been pursuing a political agenda in Europe, with recent interventions in the German election and British politics.
The electric vehicle market has become increasingly saturated since Tesla's inception, with numerous other manufacturers now producing hybrid electric cars, including BYD, BMW, Volkswagen, and others.
In addition to its fleet, Tesla is also focusing on its robotaxi, self-driving service.
What People Are Saying
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, during a conference call in April, said he was "extremely optimistic about the future of the company," which will be "fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large-scale—being large volume—vast numbers of autonomous humanoid robots."
Musk continued: "The value of a company that makes truly useful autonomous humanoid robots and autonomous useful vehicles at scale, at low cost—which is what Tesla is going to do—is staggering. I continue to believe that Tesla, with excellent execution, will be the most valuable company in the world by far."
President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday: "We might have to put DOGE on Elon," adding that "DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon."
What Happens Next
Tesla remains one of the largest suppliers of electric vehicles in the world, but competitors have taken note of the disappointing numbers and are likely to move to secure a greater market share.
On Tuesday, Trump noted that he will "have to take a look" into deporting Musk, who was born in South Africa and became a naturalized United States citizen more than two decades ago.
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