It’s really difficult right now, and maybe not wise, to stay focused exclusively on local issues, even for a locally focused publication like this one. So let’s look in again on our semi-local guy who’s making it big in the second Donald Trump administration. I’m of course talking about Tesla and SpaceX CEO — and the world’s richest person — Elon Musk.
Simultaneously with Musk’s rise in Washington, sales of Teslas are dropping fast — especially in Europe. For instance the Associated Press (yes, the ones who insist on continuing to say “Gulf of Mexico” instead of the new Trump version “Gulf of America”) reported: “European sales of Tesla electric vehicles tumbled 49% in the first two months of the year (2025) compared with a year earlier even as overall sales of EVs (Electric Vehicle) grew, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.” Specifically, at the same time Tesla’s European sales dropped by 49%, there was “a 28.4% increase in sales of all battery-electric cars in Europe.” That sure makes it seem like Elon is a big part of the problem.
The AP cited Musk’s alliance with Trump and his increased political involvement in Europe, particularly Germany, as key reasons for the Tesla European sales slump. They also cited factors related to the EV industry, like “increasing competition from major automakers as they ramp up EV production, including China’s BYD.” Specific to BYD, continued the AP report, “sales of its electric and hybrid vehicles jumped 40%.” Plus, BYD recently “announced an ultra fast EV charging system that it says is nearly as quick as a fill up at the gas pump.”
Meanwhile Tesla’s US sales are dropping too, although not as fast as in Europe — at least not yet. For instance the website InsideEVs reported on March 20, “According to Cox Automotive, EV sales in the U.S. increased 10.5% in February year-over-year to 95,692 units. BMW and Rivian saw some of the biggest gains in terms of percentages, both selling over 4,000 units. BMW’s EV sales grew 21% whereas Rivian witnessed 34% growth month-over-month. The top-five selling EVs in February were the Tesla Model Y, Model 3, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Honda Prologue and the Rivian R1S.”
They continued, “Tesla may still be on top, but its dominance is dwindling. Tesla sales were down 10% compared to the previous month, with the Model Y dropping 3.1%, Model 3 falling 17.5% and the Cybertruck [manufactured at Tesla’s Austin plant] plunging 32.5%. Note that the Model Y was down less than the overall EV market month-over-month, but the others fared far worse.”
Meanwhile Tesla’s stock has been on a roller coaster ride. It took off on a steep upward trajectory after Trump won the election, with Musk as a major backer.
- The stock was at $242 on November 4, the day before the US election.
- It then began a rapid and steep climb peaking at $479 on December 17.
- The ticker then went through a series of steep drops and slight increases, overall dropping to $424 by January 21, the day after the presidential inauguration (inauguration day was also the Martin Luther King holiday and the markets were closed.)
- After that came the steepest roller coaster downhill with the stock dropping to $222 by March 10. That was below where it was the day before the November election.
- The next day, March 11, Trump held his Tesla car show in the White House driveway and announced he was going to buy one — although we never saw a deed or any money change hands. After that, Tesla stock began steadily climbing back up and had increased to $288 by March 25. That’s more than before the election, but way below the December peak. (For charts and Tesla stock history click here.)
The recent stock boost is clearly related to Trump’s advocacy for Tesla. It’s similar to Trump backers leaping on Truth Social stock when that went public or buying Trump bitcoin, at his urging. Trump backers buying Tesla stock, however, is not the same as them actually buying Tesla vehicles. Whether MAGA backers will be able to replace all the potential buying customers Musk has lost due to his backing of Trump and his heading up of DOGE is another matter entirely.
Analysis from outside the Beltway and business pages
For analysis of this situation let’s turn to comedian Trae Crowder, the Liberal Redneck. Musk came up during a broader Crowder analysis of Trump-backing billionaires, whom he described as “men who can have enough wealth and influence to make Solomon blush and yet still be an abject loser.” Crowder then transitioned to “one of them,” Elon Musk.
“Tesla stock is falling off the cliff,” began Crowder, “which is weird, because it only took consecutive quarters of plummeting sales brought on by countless months of him intentionally alienating their target demographic in favor of a legion of cold rolling mouth-breathers who would probably describe electric cars using only homophobic slurs.”
Tesla stock is falling off the cliff. . . which is weird, because it only took consecutive quarters of plummeting sales brought on by countless months of him (Elon Musk) intentionally alienating their target demographic . . .
Trae Crowder, the Liberal Redneck
A little harsh? Yes, but, hey, he’s the Liberal Redneck. He’s also a comedian, practicing free speech. Also, Crowder is spot on about Musk working hard to alienate his own customer base. Tesla was a breakthrough company for electric cars and thus was a huge hope for addressing climate change. Tesla’s website still promotes that the company is “developing new processes, equipment and tooling to help us shape the future of sustainable transportation.” And, the same page invites potential employees to join the company “as we accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”
But, since Musk’s turn to “Dark MAGA (as Musk himself describes it),” it is easy for those wanting to buy an electric vehicle to just not include Tesla on their list of possibilities. On top of that are organized national efforts urging people not to buy Teslas. Trump, during his White House driveway infomercial for Tesla said the company was being boycotted and that such a boycott was “illegal.” According to CNBC, and others, that is inconsistent with long standing Supreme Court rulings. Of course we’ll have to wait and see. Making legal predictions is always risky and particularly nowadays. But, how can just not buying something be illegal?
For Tesla owners there is also the prospect of having their car damaged by angry anti-Trumpers. Near press time we learned that this phenomena has spread to Texarkana, Texas. There, a man is charged with ramming his ATV, or scooter, into three Teslas in a series of adjacent parking lots; an activity that at least one of the Teslas (yes the car, or car camera) evidently filmed. One of the incidents is reported to have occurred in the parking lot of a Chinese buffet, while the Tesla owner was inside eating.
By the way, here at the Austin Independent, we don’t support ramming Teslas or setting them on fire or any other form of political violence. Nor do we think it’s right to intentionally damage a Tesla that an individual already owns. That is all separate from the peaceful demonstrations at Tesla plants around the country, including here in Austin.
Tesla dealership on E. St. Elmo. Photo by Adela Mancías. Photo at top by Daryl Slusher is of Tesla Collision Center on East Stassney Lane. In an attempt to avoid arousing suspicions in the current atmosphere both photos were taken from our vehicle.
If the protests against Tesla bring further drops in sales that would obviously hurt the company financially going forward. Protestors’ success in that effort would also have some collateral damage, including locally. For instance there could be job losses, including at the massive Austin plant.
On the other hand — from the irony department — if Trump backers start buying large numbers of Teslas that would be a significant advance against climate change.
What About SpaceX?
No matter how far Tesla might sink, however, it’s unlikely to wreck Elon Musk’s bank account. That’s because SpaceX (not a publicly traded company) stands to make a whole lot of money from federal government contracts. As the New York Times reported on March 23:
“The boost in federal spending for SpaceX will come in part as a result of actions by President Trump and Elon Musk’s allies and employees who hold government positions. Supporters say he has the best technology.”
This is a complex situation as exemplified in the contrast between the first and second sentence of that subhead. The Times states directly that Musk is likely to benefit from inside influence, but then acknowledges that there are credible arguments that SpaceX is the technological leader in the field.
For instance, only last week a SpaceX mission rescued astronauts who were stranded in space for almost nine months beyond their originally intended stay. They had to stay months longer because, as reported by the AP, the Boeing Starliner that took them there “had so many problems getting to the space station that NASA ruled it too dangerous to carry anyone and it flew back empty.”
Along a similar vein the Times also reported, “Even if Mr. Trump had never given Mr. Musk and his employees a government role — or if former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been elected to a second term — SpaceX would have continued to secure new government work. What has changed is the overall value of the work expected to be delivered to SpaceX.”
J.D. Vance and Chito Vela – Great Minds Think Alike
As reported by KXAN, in a March 10 speech to a National League of Cities gathering, J.D. Vance discussed housing issues, saying, “We’ve got to actually make it easier to build homes, and in particular, I think the city of Austin has done a pretty interesting job, because in Austin, you saw this massive increase of people moving in, the cost of housing skyrocketed, but then Austin implemented some pretty smart policies and brought down the cost of housing, and it’s one of the few major American cities where you see the cost of housing leveling off or even coming down.”
J.D. Vance photo is from WhiteHouse.gov. Chito Vela image is a screenshot from Channel 6.
Vance is apparently referring to the new policies that the City Council began passing in December 2023 with the HOME initiative followed in 2024 by HOME 2 and a number of other initiatives. If Vance is not referring to those policies then it’s not clear what he is referring to because the previous Council’s efforts at major policy changes were thrown out in court.
Vance is right about housing prices in Austin “leveling off or even coming down.” But, those drops in housing prices came in 2022 and 2023, before the Council’s policy changes. The new policies may yet yield drops in housing prices. So far, however, only three homes have been built under the HOME initiative. In December a City memo reported that the City “has received applications that could potentially result in 300 new dwelling units.” No price is yet known on those units, however.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is almost the exact same mistake that Austin Council Member Chito Vela made in a 2024 year-end interview, although he has less excuse for being poorly informed about Austin policies than Vance.
By the way, it’s hard not to wonder how Vance got that information regarding Austin. I don’t know because nobody in the administration included me on any Signal chats. My guess is that Musk’s fellow California transplant high-tech billionaire Nicole Nosek — a major backer of HOME and Mayor Kirk Watson — has kept Musk in the loop and then Musk told Vance.
Or, maybe Musk has just been keeping up himself. I mean, in April 2021, well before the Council passed all the changes Musk tweeted, “Urgent need to build more housing in greater Austin area.”
But, like I said, that’s all just speculation. I don’t know for certain.
Now, here’s another Chito Vela quote that we haven’t given enough attention yet: “We were working under the premise for a couple of decades here in Austin that if we did not allow new construction, that would help preserve neighborhoods and hold down costs. That has just been objectively shown to be false, and that the contrary approach is true.”
That one is just wildly untrue. Yes, Austin housing prices soared, but for decades Austin was a national leader in building housing, as we have repeatedly documented. Reading either of these earlier Austin Independent stories will clearly prove false Vela’s statement that Austin operated for two decades on a “premise” of not allowing new construction. Or, you can just drive around town and see for yourself.
This quote is so untrue that — combined with Vela and Vance saying almost the same thing — I’m wondering if Vela has some MAGA in him. For instance let’s take his quote and put it in Trumpspeak, like Trump was/is saying it. We’ll take Vela’s quote, put in some pauses, some diversions off the main topic, and maybe take out a couple of the big or complicated words, like “premise,” “contrary” and “objectively.” Then, read it with your best Trump impersonation. Here we go.
(Read in Trump accent) “Here in Austin, you were thinking, for a couple of decades, that if you didn’t allow new construction — not allow new construction, we love new construction now, don’t we? And, you know you don’t need front lawns. I mean I’m not a big fan of front lawns. I think of them more as kind of wasted space.*
But, here in Austin you were thinking that if you didn’t build anything, that would help save neighborhoods, and hold down prices — we love to hold down prices, don’t we. But, now we know that is false, not true, fake news.”
* actual Chito Vela quote in two sentences preceding asterisk
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