Tesla sales in Europe are plummeting fast. Electrek reports that, year over year, sales are down 18 percent in the United Kingdom, 31 percent in Portugal, more than 40 percent in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, 63 percent in France, and a whopping 75 percent in Spain. Overall, the takeaway seems to be that Europeans want Elon Musk and his fancy car company to fuck right off.
Some media outlets have linked the company’s cratering sales to its CEO’s growing unpopularity. That would make sense, since Musk has spent the last several months openly meddling in political systems all over Europe. Musk has used his social media platform, X, to attack European leaders (including the prime minister of Britain and regulators in Ireland), has endorsed a far-right party in Germany that is alleged to have ties to neo-Nazis, and has fostered ties to Italy’s rightwing prime minister. Musk has also attempted to conjure a MAGA equivalent in Europe dubbed “MEGA,” or Make Europe Great Again.
It would appear that Musk’s favorability in many of these countries is quite low. A recent YouGov poll found that most citizens of Germany and the UK thought Musk was ignorant of their countries and should stay out of their politics.
Musk and Tesla also recently engaged in a high-profile battle with a number of Scandinavian unions, further tarring his image with organized labor on the continent. Europeans may sense that Musk wants to export his feudalist economic policies to their countries and aren’t eager to let that happen.
As fun as it is to imagine that Europeans are boycotting Elon’s cars because they hate him so much, other factors may also be a play. Tesla’s sales were already declining in Europe prior to the recent numbers. Indeed, the company’s EV sales saw a 13 percent drop in the EU last year, experiencing declines in Germany, Italy, France, and other places. Some of Tesla’s declines could also be explained by the introduction of rival EV companies to these markets, as well as by increasingly steep regulatory hurdles that car companies need to jump through.
Tesla’s sales also recently plummeted in California, which is the company’s biggest market in the U.S. by far. Bloomberg reports that sales of the Model 3—considered the company’s second most popular model—”plunged 36%” from the previous year. Overall, California sales for Tesla fell approximately 8% in 2024’s fourth quarter and were down 12% for the year. This represents the first annual drop in sales for Musk’s company in the state.
The California New Car Dealers Association said, of Tesla: “Things aren’t looking so golden for EV automaker Tesla in the Golden State. Tesla’s dominance in the electric vehicle market continues to falter as the brand reported its fifth consecutive quarterly registration decline.”
Maybe this has something to do with the fact that Musk has compared California to communist China, and encouraged companies and people to move out of the state. Or maybe it’s because he’s hitched his wagon to Donald Trump’s star—a politician most Californians hate. Or maybe it’s because he recently made what looked a whole helluva lot like a Nazi salute at a political rally. All of these seem like viable possibilities.
Tesla’s sales were down globally by 1.1 percent last year, the first decline for the company in over a decade, the Associated Press has reported.
In short: Elon Musk may be such a huge asshole that it is effectively killing his business. Of course, now that Musk has effectively hijacked the U.S. government, there are numerous ways that the billionaire can leverage its powers to privilege his businesses and keep them booming. That may be the only way Musk can keep his companies ascendent since people all over the world increasingly seem to hate him.