‘I felt nothing but disgust’: Tesla owners vent their anger at Elon Musk
The tycoon’s links with Donald Trump and Germany’s far-right AfD have slammed the brakes on sales and put the car’s owners in a spin
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hen Mike Schwede first sat in a Tesla Roadster 15 years ago, he felt like it was a glimpse into the future. By 2016, he was the proud owner of a Tesla, revelling in the thumbs up he would get from other drivers as he whizzed along Europe’s highways in the electric vehicle.
Schwede contemplated selling his car, but after racking up more than 60,000 miles on it, there was little value left in it. So he came up with his own means of reclaiming his Tesla and the liberal ethos that had underpinned his purchase; he began donating 10 cents for every kilometre driven to a range of charities, countering Musk’s support of the far right with direct support to those who help LGBTQ+ youth or fight hate and extremism. “It was something Elon wouldn’t like,” he said. “That’s my personal revenge.”
“Of course, as a Tesla driver you were always the fool: the Green party voter, the world saviour, the CO2 guy,” Schneider told Germany’s Capital.de media. “But now you’re in a category that’s no longer funny.”
What he came up with was a line of “Anti-Elon stickers” for Tesla cars. In an echo of an American initiative, he began selling the stickers online six months ago, taking orders for messages that range from “I bought this before Elon went crazy” to “Elon sucks”.
After a Dutch poll suggested 31% of respondents who owned Teslas were considering selling them or had already done so, it remains to be seen what the impact will be on the company. Matthias Schmidt, a Germany-based automotive analyst, said “2025 will be one of the biggest tests for Tesla.”
Figures for early 2025 show that Tesla sales fell sharply across several European markets. Registrations were down 63% on a year earlier in France, 59% in Germany, 44% in Sweden, 38% in Norway and 12% in the UK.
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Following an extraordinary 2023 and 2024, when Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) shares rose 102% and 63%, respectively, the stock is facing different sentiment in 2025. As of this writing, shares are down more than 18% year to date.
The growth stock’s recent pullback raises the question: Is now a good time to buy shares of the electric-car maker? After all, Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently told investors in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that he sees “a path” to the company potentially becoming “the most valuable company in the world by far.” If Musk is right, today’s pullback would represent an extraordinary buying opportunity.
At face value, Tesla stock looks wildly expensive. Shares currently trade at about 163 times earnings. This is especially difficult to comprehend when looking at the company’s most recent quarterly results when total revenue grew just 2% year over year and net income fell 71%. Companies with this sort of fundamental performance usually command price-to-earnings multiples far lower.
But those who are bullish on Tesla stock often explain that its valuation is based on what the company has in the pipeline. For instance, Tesla told investors in its fourth-quarter earnings call that it would be launching testing of its unsupervised full self-driving taxi service in June in Austin. Tesla believes that eventually, all the vehicles it sells will be capable of driving themselves and will be able to be deployed into the taxi network to earn Tesla and the owner of the vehicle money.
Looking beyond this “robotaxi” service, as Tesla calls it, the company also has a fast-growing energy storage business. Tesla’s energy generation and storage revenue rose 113% year over year in Q4. This put the segment’s total revenue at more than $3 billion, or 12% of total sales. Tesla believes this fast-growing business will grow to represent an even larger portion of the company’s overall business over time.
Then there’s Tesla’s product development of humanoid robots. Though Tesla isn’t selling any humanoid robots yet, Musk is confident that this will become a major driver for the business in the years ahead. Tesla plans to start humanoid robot production this year.
All of these product aspirations have the potential to create incredible shareholder value over the next five to 10 years. The bull case for Tesla stock is that one or more of these big bets, along with an expected reacceleration in auto sales, will pay off handsomely over the long haul, helping the automaker easily live up to its sky-high valuation.
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Tesla shares slump after European sales fall
Shares in electric car maker Tesla have slumped more than 9% after EU and UK sales fell by almost half in January.
The drop in Tesla shares took the company’s valuation back below $1trn for the first time since November 2024.
Tesla has been facing stiff competition in the European market from Chinese and other manufacturers.
In addition, Tesla owner Elon Musk has been making controversial political waves on both sides of the Atlantic, an analyst said.
Tesla sales in January bucked European electric car sale trends, which grew by more than a third in the month, according to trade body Acea.
Instead, Tesla sales across the EU, EFTA and the UK fell more than 45%, and more than 50% in the EU alone.
It comes after Tesla sales fell last year for the first time in more than a decade as demand faltered and rivals gained pace.
The main factor in the January sales slump was likely to be increasing competition, AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said.
Chinese manufacturer BYD has been making big strides, in part because it includes as standard some features which cost extra from other makers, Mould said.
However, some car buyers may also be taking a “principled stand” on Musk’s political interventions, he said.
Musk has made waves in the US with his involvement in slashing US development funds and efforts to drastically reduce US federal funding.
In the UK he supports jailed far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, and repeatedly criticised Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Musk also supports the far-right AfD party in Germany, and congratulated its leader after the party’s record second-place result in elections.
Asked if the reason for Tesla’s share price slump was down to Musk being too toxic, a former senior director of the car maker’s Europe, Middle East and Asia division said it was “definitely one of the reasons for the decline”, but added there was a “cumulative number of things that are piling up a domino effect”.
“There’s no doubt his flirting with the right in politics, running around on TV with a chainsaw is not exactly helping his image,” Peter Bardenfleth-Hansen told the BBC’s Today programme.
“He may be getting a bigger fanbase within a specific type of clientele, but they’re not the ones that are buying the Teslas. They’re not the ones putting money in to his company. So he has a problem.”
Tesla shares got a big boost after the US election due to Musk’s closeness to Donald Trump – Musk has described himself as “first buddy” to the US president.
Investors thought this would stand his businesses in good stead.
However, Trump is not a supporter of electric vehicles, and has said he will cancel efforts to boost their ownership.
“How anybody thought this was going to be good for Tesla, I don’t know,” Mould said.
There is also general market skittishness about the path of interest rate cuts and concerns about Trump tariff plans that could be contributing to the fall, he added.
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