2 days Ago By Carolyn Fortuna
As I logged in to write this morning, Tesla stock was down nearly 5%. It seemed at that early hour as if the Musk–Trump honeymoon was over, and the numbers piling in since that dawn hour have reinforced my original speculation. Tesla’s press release today embraced a feel-good focus as it began with Q4 2024 results — a record-setting quarter for the company.
“In the fourth quarter, we produced approximately 459,000 vehicles, delivered over 495,000 vehicles and deployed 11.0 GWh of energy storage products — a record for both deliveries and deployments.” Tesla then announced that it delivered 1,789,226 vehicles worldwide for 2024, which is 19,355 short of the previous year.
Those slightly fewer sales numbers represent the first annual decline in the company’s history. Dissonance and controversies have plagued Tesla for years and have sparked previous market concerns, so the notion that Tesla’s battery electric vehicle line has plateaued doesn’t seem that far fetched. Tesla shares have seen robust gains in recent months.
The carmaker added more than $733 billion in market capitalization from Election Day through mid-December, as reported by Bloomberg , when its valuation peaked at $1.54 trillion. Tesla investors had disavowed any relationship between Musk’s social media and financial support of Trump as well as right-wing leaders in other countries as factors that could interrupt the company’s continued success.
In the Tesla Q3 earnings call, Musk speculated that the company could increase sales by 20% to 30% in 2025. Analysts expect sales of Teslas and other electric models to spike this month as buyers in the US rush to take advantage of tax incentives before they disappear. To achieve Musk’s vision of growth, however, the company will need new models that are fresh, affordable, and familiar — a combination of qualities that the company has yet to identify.
New variants of the Model 3 and Y could be priced $4,000 to $5,000 less than current versions through an improved electrical architecture, lower cost parts, or removing certain components or features, according to Chris McNally of Evercore ISI. No prototype has been released, however. While Tesla still accounts for nearly half of all electric cars sold in the US , competition from legacy and rising automakers with new electric models in their catalogs has reduced Tesla’s original market edge.
The Musk–Trump pact hasn’t had an impact of EV competition. China’s BYD, for example, which stopped making vehicles entirely powered by fossil fuels in 2022, experienced a recent surge to push total sales to 4.25 million passenger cars last year, narrowing its gap with Tesla.
BYD sold 509,440 plug-in hybrid and battery electric passenger vehicles in December, the company said Wednesday. The figure includes 207,734 EVs, taking the annual tally of battery-electric car sales to 1.76 million.
Overall annual sales increased 41% year-on-year. It has trailed Tesla in quarterly sales this year and has also been under scrutiny in Brazil over allegations of slave-like conditions for some construction workers building a new EV factory . The zeitgeist over the US presidential election had convinced many analysts that Tesla would benefit hugely due to Musk’s extraordinary levels of campaign financing.
Gut feelings that Tesla would continue to find new customers among Trump voters who had previously regarded EVs as “bicoastal liberal elitism on wheels” now seem highly misplaced. Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s allegiance to Trump may not pay the dividends for Tesla and his other companies that he and some pundits anticipated. Trump’s return to the US executive office was spurred on by populism that emphasizes an “us vs.
them” dichotomy. By redefining democratic politics around exclusionary lines, Trump drew upon male anxiety — rooted in fears of economic insecurity and immigration — to mobilize support. Economic discontent has been reframed of late as a cultural battle.
By amplifying fears of moral alienation and cultural displacement, Trump’s calculated strategy to consolidate power lies with mobilizing resentment to erode the very norms that sustain democratic institutions. Musk, too, has long identified declining economic security of the white working class, recasting automaking as technological innovation. It has proven to be a critical mechanism to retain his non-unionized workforce.
Musk’s shift in political allegiance coincided with tax proposals that would impact his wealth, prompting him to engage in political contributions and public campaigns against Democratic tax policies. Hate speech rose dramatically upon Musk purchasing Twitter, and the prevalence of most types of bots increased. The “Musketeers,” as Musk loyalists were known inside Twitter, searched Twitter’s Slack archives for keywords including “Elon” and fired dozens of employees who had made snarky comments about Musk.
Musk’s actions reflect a broader trend among billionaires prioritizing personal wealth accumulation over societal well-being, sparking concerns about the influence of wealth in politics. It is important to note that Musk’s net worth increased by $70 billion within five days of the most recent election. Musk has insisted for years that autonomy will lead to the surge of Tesla expansion and has been betting that Trump will expedite a federal framework for autonomous vehicle deployment.
A Musk–Trump quid pro quo seemed inevitable. But even with the Trump administration’s expected federal lenience of self-driving specs, is Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) ready to rumble? As a private-sector leader, Elon Musk has a real opportunity to speak about climate and energy policy in Trump’s second term. Historically, the goals of the Trump administration have been viewed as opposed to environmental advocacy; yet, Musk could take advantage of his influence and reconcile his wide economic objectives with climate-positive results.
Populism and nativism have reshaped the US political landscape . As a prominent figure in Trump’s circle, Musk wields outsized influence as both a deregulation advocate and a media magnate. Through his dominance of platforms like X, Musk amplifies misinformation, weakening public trust in institutions and expertise.
His inclusion in the cabinet signals a shift toward governance driven by individual power rather than institutional accountability, further undermining democratic norms. But is change in the air? Some of the Trumpsters worry that Musk may prove a diversion from achieving sweeping America First goals. They muse that Musk’s global non-state power, which penetrates the economies of many countries, including China, may lead to conflicts of interest .
Featured image: “ Elon Musk Presenting Tesla’s Fully Autonomous Future ” by jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0 . CleanTechnica's Comment Policy LinkedIn WhatsApp Facebook Bluesky Email Reddit.
