Elon Musk has repeatedly denied that the truth that he went “all-in on Donald Trump,” the controversial former president, is negatively affecting his companies. Now, he went so far as claiming that Tesla’s gross sales are at ‘all-time highs.’
Throughout an X Area yesterday, the Tesla CEO was requested what he thinks of the claims that his assist of Trump is affecting Tesla negatively.
Musk responded:
Tesla’s gross sales are literally doing nice. We’re hitting all-time highs. I feel folks actually care concerning the high quality of the product versus whether or not they agree or disagree with the CEO’s views. The CEO of any given firm goes to have political opinions. On the finish of the day what issues is that if Tesla makes an awesome product, and other people like shopping for nice merchandise.
There are a number of fascinating issues right here.
First off, “gross sales are hitting all-time highs.” There are various methods to interpret this, however just one could make Musk proper: Tesla had its finest Q3 for automobile deliveries final quarter:
With 463,000 automobile deliveries final quarter, Tesla technically beat its final Q3 file, however the motive has extra to do with Q3 2023 than 2024.
Tesla claimed that “a sequential decline in volumes was attributable to deliberate downtimes for manufacturing unit upgrades.” With out that, Tesla would have probably been flat on deliveries in Q3 2024 versus final yr.
This delayed some shipments into This autumn 2023 – leading to Tesla’s all-time supply excessive.
However Musk can’t deny that Tesla’s efficiency in 2024 has been lower than stellar.
Tesla’s complete deliveries in 2024 (1,293,656) are nonetheless down greater than 30,000 models in comparison with the primary three quarters in 2023 (1,324,074).
That’s regardless of Tesla including the Cybertruck to the lineup, which began to contribute meaningfully final quarter. It’s onerous to swallow for an organization that’s all about progress. The chart above exhibits that the expansion between 2020 and 2023 was awe-inspiring, nevertheless it stopped in 2024.
Tesla’s inventory efficiency can also be carefully monitoring its progress in deliveries after which the stagnation:
In 2023, Tesla began reducing costs, which negatively affected its gross margins and earnings, and it countered the expansion in deliveries by way of inventory efficiency.
As for the influence of Musk’s very energetic and public assist of Trump on Tesla’s gross sales, that’s certainly extra nuanced.
There have been many polls concerning the subject exhibiting that automobile consumers are much less all for shopping for Tesla autos attributable to Elon Musk, nevertheless it’s onerous to inform how the polls translate into the fact of automobile purchases, that are essential selections for many households.
Nevertheless, there have been direct examples of Tesla dropping out on gross sales due to Musk’s assist of Trump. For instance, Rossmann, one of many largest pharmacy chains in Europe and a long-time Tesla shopper, stated that it might cease changing its fleet to Tesla autos due to Musk’s assist of Trump and the previous president’s anti-environmentalist insurance policies.
Electrek’s Take
It’s not likely encouraging that Elon is oblivious to Tesla’s present state of affairs. I really feel prefer it’s a bit deceptive to say that Tesla’s gross sales are “hitting all-time highs” when Tesla is on monitor to have its first down yr in deliveries in its existence regardless of including a automobile to its lineup for the primary time since 2020.
It’s virtually like he’s simply repeating what his largest followers on X tweet him on a regular basis. He lives in a unique actuality due to the echo chamber he constructed for himself and his followers on X.
I do know Tesla followers like to say that it’s about macroeconomics and rates of interest, which undoubtedly have an effect, however Tesla additionally vastly diminished its costs during the last yr and supplied sponsored rates of interest.
At this level, it’s a bit ridiculous to behave as if Tesla doesn’t have a broader subject. As for the influence of Elon’s assist, it’s admittedly unimaginable to quantify, however I really feel prefer it’s protected to say that it has, on the very least, some influence.
Lastly, it’s additionally unfair for Elon to say that “each CEO has political opinions” as if he’s sharing his like everybody else. Not each CEO calls the opposite occasion, “the occasion of hate”, and offers thousands and thousands of {dollars} to elect a candidate with a protracted monitor file that goes towards Tesla’s mission to speed up the appearance of sustainable power.
CEOs additionally don’t all go on the marketing campaign path and get photographed leaping up and down like highschool cheerleaders behind Trump.
No matter occurs subsequent month, I doubt Elon’s resolution will age properly. Even when Trump wins, I’d be shocked if he doesn’t activate Elon inside a yr.
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