Tesla sold 60,000 fewer cars this quarter. I wonder who’s to blame?

Tesla has shared its quarterly delivery update for April to June this year, and it’s dropped 14 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2024. That amounts to 60,000 fewer cars delivered.

In total, the automaker delivered 384,122, and this is the second quarter in a row where the automaker has reported a drop. Last quarter, deliveries were down 13 per cent year over year.

While there are likely compounding reasons for the decline of Tesla, the number one candidate is likely CEO Elon Musk, who has ruffled feathers all over the world this year with both his political career and just the way he’s been acting online. There is also the company’s renewed focus on its robo-taxi efforts and its humanoid robots. While both of these arms of the business seem small compared to the core of Tesla’s business, they are distracting.

That being said, I really think a lot of the sales slowdown can be attributed to Musk. During Tesla’s early years, he was less of a public figure and in the years since, he’s become more and more chronically online while also getting more famous. And throughout all that coverage, the world has seen how he truly acts, and I don’t think it sits right with people. He even managed to rile up Canadians. 

In his political endeavours, Musk turned both sides of the political spectrum against him and, in turn, his brands. At first, he was Trump’s BFF, which made the left not like him. Once he was ousted from the White House, he turned the right against him, too. For now, he still seems to have fans with the libertarian crypto bros, but who knows how long that will last?

Source: Tesla