Elon Musk’s Toxicity Could Spell Disaster for Tesla

“I’ve defended you guys so much over the years, and you make great products, but even I can’t stick up for you anymore,” she stated.

Róbertsdóttir, now a software developer for Icelandic air traffic control company Isavia, started her tech career as founder of Iowa-based Celadon Applications. This 2009 startup developed software for electric vehicles. A long-time Tesla stockholder, one of her resolutions was put to the vote at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in 2023, calling on Tesla’s board to release a succession plan for Musk and other “key persons” whose behavior could create a risk for the company and shareholders.

“When people look at this company,” she said at the meeting, “they see the company as a synonym for its CEO.” (The board recommended rejecting the resolution, and it was duly voted down.)

While some shareholders have already voted with their feet—in January, Dutch civil service pension fund ABP sold its €782 million stake in Tesla, for instance—most still seem unbothered by Musk’s trolling, or his apparent takeover of the US government’s executive branch with the help of young coders. Musk’s “pedo guy” comments against a British cave rescue diver, successfully defended in a 2019 defamation trial, didn’t ruffle that many shareholder feathers, but it’s harder to ignore sales cull calls.

In late January, Poland’s sports and tourism minister Sławomir Nitras lobbied for a Tesla boycott. “There is no justification for any reasonable Pole to continue purchasing Teslas,” he said.

In Germany, where Musk has caused outrage by endorsing far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), going so far as to appear as a surprise video guest at the party’s national election campaign launch last month, several companies have cut ties with Tesla. Drugstore chain Rossmann, with 4,700 stores across Europe, has replaced Tesla in its electric fleet with other EV brands, citing the “incompatibility” of its corporate values and Musk’s ideology.

German energy company LichtBlick revealed an uncoupling from Tesla on a LinkedIn post. “We are pulling the plug on Tesla vehicles in our fleet,” said the announcement, with the firm’s real estate head, Kevin Lütje, clarifying that “Elon Musk’s support of Donald Trump and his recommendation to vote for a right-wing populist and right-wing extremist party … is in no way compatible with LichtBlick’s values.” He stated that “climate protection and electromobility are extremely important to us, but in the future we will be relying on providers other than Tesla.”

Such boycotts benefit Tesla’s rivals. “We have seen an increase in people writing to us and switching to Polestar in recent months,” Polestar’s German CEO Michael Lohscheller tells WIRED. Lohscheller called Musk’s endorsement of AfD “totally unacceptable.”

There are many reasons for Tesla’s waning fortunes in Europe—including stale model line-up (Geely’s Gothenburg-developed Zeekr 7X SUV has more bells and whistles than a Model Y) and expense (a Model 3 costs €39,990 in Europe, while many better EVs are biting into this price point)—but Musk’s steady descent from real-life Tony Stark to MAGA power broker seems to be a key reason for Tesla’s current precipitous fall from grace.

Tesla sales dropped 13 percent across the whole European Union in 2024, according to data from the industry body ACEA, and just like in Spain and France, in many key markets the fall is still steeper. According to the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, Tesla registered only 1,277 new cars in Germany in January, a year-on-year drop of 59.5 percent.

Tesla was contacted for this piece and did not respond, but there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel for Tesla sales in Europe. A recent survey by Dutch news outlet EenVandaag got responses from 432 Tesla drivers. Some “31 percent are either contemplating selling their car or have already done so,” the survey found. Forty percent of owners felt embarrassed to own a Tesla. By any measure, these are statistics that no car company wants to own.