Elon Musk’s polarizing political actions since acquiring Twitter, later rebranded X, in 2022 dramatically hurt the automaker’s U.S. sales, underscoring how deeply its fortunes are intertwined with the billionaire’s persona.

The findings quantify for the first time how the political actions of the world’s wealthiest person – including his role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration – may have cost Tesla billions in lost vehicle sales while benefiting rival electric carmakers.

Tesla’s U.S. sales would have been between 67% and 83% higher, or about 1 million to 1.26 million additional vehicles, from October 2022 to April 2025, had it not been for what researchers call the “Musk partisan effect,” according to a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research by Yale University economists.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Sentiment toward Tesla improved somewhat as Musk pivoted the company towards robotaxis, self-driving technology and robots in human form.

    What are three things that don’t exist and don’t have a market?

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    10 hours ago

    He had no choice. The feds were on his ass and his scams was going to unravel. Fucking twat.

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    11 hours ago

    And yet the stock broke a new record this week.

    Waiting for the other shoe to drop. I shorted it since i believed dropped sale would actually bring them back to earth. But clearly it has turned into some meme-stock.

    • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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      24 minutes ago

      The stock price and vehicle sales are not directly linked. Tesla is a meme stock. It’s a house of cards thy keep lying about

    • vga@sopuli.xyz
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      11 hours ago

      Perhaps it helps that their cars are still better than the competition.

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        Mechanically, they’re shockingly bad. I’ve spoken to mechanics that tell of some serious cost cutting when it comes to suspension and their attachments.

        New cars (3 years) can essentially fall apart at the wheels.

        • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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          3 hours ago

          The three people I know with Teslurs had to have the car replaced under the 48 month lease. That’s why these cars are practically free used after warranty. They now shit parts and entire frames out using a Gigapress.

          Tesla was a tech company making cars. It’s like buying a car from MicroSoft.

        • vga@sopuli.xyz
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          11 hours ago

          Yeah, the weight + acceleration + mechanics quality combo isn’t great especially if you accelerate like a race driver. Which most new owners will for awhile certainly.

          I got some of those parts replaced in warranty just recently. Interesting to see if the same problems will come back.

          It’s possible that my opinion on this changes when warranty expires and we’ll see how the car really does long term. But so far it’s so much better than any competitor car we’ve tried that it’s not even close.

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      14 hours ago

      The fact that he was still given a position in the White House after he explicitly outed himself as a Nazi is really telling.

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        4 hours ago

        That was probably what tipped the scale over. So he’s african, but i think he’s one of the good ones it seems.

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        11 hours ago

        Technically, at least according to the court records and the admins defense, Elon Musk never had a real position.

        But yes, he spent way too fucking much time at the white house.

        • Dragonstaff@leminal.space
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          5 hours ago

          No, there are no “court records” that say that. If you want to believe this administration about it, that liquid falling in your face is only rain, don’t worry about it.

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            52 seconds ago

            Idk why you’re getting so mad about semantics, I’m just saying that piece of shit Elon Musk never had a position and never will.

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    12 hours ago

    Tesla after losing one million ev sales after the actions of the CEO: here’s 56 billion and you know what? We’re going to give another trillion in pay package to the CEO

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    11 hours ago

    The cybertruck is also a piece of shit from an engineering standpoint, tbh.

    A big plastic body with steel plates glued on? Collects water in the carwash? What could go wrong?

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      3 hours ago

      A big plastic body with steel plates glued on?

      Not just any glue, thermal adhesive. Hot glue. Everyone knows hot glue arts and crafts last forever.

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      4 hours ago

      Tesla Giga presses are for the largest aluminum castings in the world. That part is pretty clever.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    24 hours ago

    Elon Musk’s politics Nazism cost his firm Tesla more than one million EV sales

    Fixed it.

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      2 hours ago

      And not even just that. Also his bullshit acting like he was the president, speaking for the president, and his dodge bullshit.

      Fuck that guy, he’s a real piece of work on all areas.

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    1 day ago

    It should have cost him all the Tesla sales. The fact that it didn’t is creepy and scary

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      As a consequence, he’s the richest person in the world and Tesla is a 1.5 Trillion dollar company. It has TEN times the P/E of companies like apple, microsoft, and google. More than 5x Nvidia, even.

      Why do we live in a world that rewards the worst shit? I mean even Trump is a real billionaire now.

        • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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          3 hours ago

          the measure of if a company actually makes money versus what people think it is worth.

          Tesla is 15X overvalued by any financial measure, which is why serious investors avoid it. Meme stock.

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          21 hours ago

          Price to earnings ratio. Low p/e means good value, high is either inflated, or a signal that people think their earnings will increase in the future.

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      11 hours ago

      It could be a happy thought, that most people aren’t part of the terminally online meme culture. That they have real concerns instead of bullshit imagined ones.

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    1 day ago

    I love Electric cars and Sattelite internet and Spaceships.

    WTF has this asshole made all the things I love awful and unacceptable.

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      These guys actually made me realize satellite grids are not a good idea, they’re in places they’re not supposed to be and use lights that weren’t authorized, meaning about 1/3 of ground-based telescope exposures are being ruined right now. Negative externalities abound.

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        How about horizon pollution, I can see those shitty things with my own eyes.

        How about the huge increase in risk of a Kessler effect?

        How about that for most people this won’t even be necessary as most people don’t need low latency satellite internet? I’m sorry if you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean and have to deal with a high ping while playing fortnite or something but your low ping is not worth the downsides

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          Kessler syndrome is not a big deal here. These particular satellites are so low they would self-deorbit after like 5 years. That’s an argument that more should be at such a low altitude. Let them collide, and drop out of the sky

          You also forgot all those rural people that still don’t have another way to get internet. Yes they should have an option

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          How about the huge increase in risk of a Kessler effect?

          bah… get outta here with science…he shot up a car just as a stunt.

        • localhost001@lemmy.world
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          Or destroying the ozone layer.

          Up to 4-5 Starlink satellites now burn up in Earth’s atmosphere daily, releasing aluminum oxide particles that catalyze ozone destruction. Each 250kg satellite releases about 30 kg of aluminum oxide when it burns up, forming nanoparticles that persist in the stratosphere for 20–30 years, continuously damaging the ozone layer. With plans for up to 42,000 Starlink satellites (plus thousands more from other companies) all on 5-year replacement cycles, annual reentries could exceed 8,000 by the 2030s, adding 360 metric tons of aluminum oxide per year, 640% above natural levels.

          The Montreal Protocol, which successfully phased out CFCs and enabled ozone recovery, does not cover aluminum oxide pollution from satellites. The FCC currently categorizes satellites as “extraterritorial activities” exempt from National Environmental Policy Act review, meaning no environmental assessment is required before launch approval. By the time the full impacts appear in the 2040s–2050s, the damage could be irreversible.

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          Their orbit is too low for Kessler syndrome. If every starlink blew up today, it would only take a few years for all the debris to fall to earth. It’s the higher geosynchronous orbit you gotta worry about.

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        round-based telescope exposures are being ruined right now. Negative externalities abound.

        I can’t help but think we could have done it with a reasonable number of sats. we put so many up it was like it was just a flex to make spacex profitable

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      1 day ago

      I feel the exact same way about Thiel and “Things Named After Lord of the Rings.”

      It’s so endlessly infuriating watching billionaires actively turn things we care about against us.

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    Customer base most likely to hate nazis: people who buy EVs.

    Customer base most likely to love nazis: people who buy trucks that get 2 mpg.

    Guess the pedo genius found that math problem a little too difficult.

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    He doesn’t care, there is nothing that can really ruin him financially, and the idea that he would ever be convicted for a crime is ridiculous as well.

    These people, the ones who have control over the major levers of power, they have completely insulated themselves from accountability, they are all psychopaths, and many are nearing the ends of their lives, so they are particularly nihilistic and dismissive of the consequences of their actions.

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      He doesn’t care

      Ohh but he does, he has a terribly thin skin. He’ll never hurt for money, but he’s deperate to make his mark on the work that isn’t branded an utter failure.

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          Eh, I dunno, none of that is really dissuading my opinion, and in my experience most “normies” still see him as a visionary, albeit an erratic and sometimes arrogant one. He has a “cocoon” of acknowledgment, and his place in the history books is ensured at this point.

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            1 day ago

            The companies were good before he bought them. The only visionary thing he did was buy them. Every time he gets in there and starts flipping switches and pulling knobs, they become worth much less.

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        unlike rescue submarines, traffic tunnels, hyperloop, Mars landers, electric semi trucks, his penis, tesla ventillators, FSD…

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        And yet that’s all he shall ever be remembered as. The moment he’s dead, make sure every statue, plaq and memorial he tries having built is rusted always by some magical compound that rhymes with peach

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    1 day ago

    “Musk partisan effect”

    Fucking hell, these people can euphemism their way out of anything. It’s the Musk Is A Fucking Nazi effect. Just say it as it is. How is this guy still allowed to be a director of a company that he is actively hurting? Are there no laws regarding fiduciary duty? Shareholders ought to be rearing him to shreds, not voting to pay him more.

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      4 hours ago

      Just say it as it is.

      Ivet said ot a few times in.a thread on.a local Australian forum about buying Tesla’s and.the post just gets deleted.

      Australian’s are atill buying heaps of them and we only get 2 models, the 3 and Y.

    • Formfiller@lemmy.world
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      The richest man in the world is the main shareholder. You can thank our government for giving him massive tax payer subsidies instead of investing in multiple American run businesses. I’ve noticed our government likes to give all of our tax dollars to South African apartheid Nazis who are now looting our government and stripping our freedoms because they think they haven’t gotten enough.