In the latest of a series of stories about Tesla’s declining fortunes, Automotive News quoted an analyst with a cheery view of the future.
“I believe the controversy surrounding Elon and Tesla will persist for at least the next year,” Gene Munster of Deepwater Management wrote on X. However, he was optimistic that Tesla could rebound after Musk is slated to leave the Trump administration. “The negative headlines will subside and the brand will recover, given that Tesla remains the best bang for EV buck” (Iliff, 2025b).
Munster’s take sounds overly optimistic. Even if Musk were not hotly polarizing, competition in the EV market is expected to increase in the next few years. Now factor in that Musk is alienating a major portion of the car-buying public.
It’s only a flesh wound . . .
I suspect that Musk would not be able to rebuild support from left-of-center car buyers even if he were to subsequently abstain from any political activities — including posting on his social media platform X. Democratic leaders have been attacking him because polling suggests that Musk is more unpopular than President Donald Trump (Merley and Thadani, 2025).
For example, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) recently said Republicans were “working for Elon Musk and doing the bidding of an unelected, unaccountable, out-of-control billionaire puppet master” (Merley and Thadani, 2025). Musk is fast becoming the face of a new Gilded Age.
Also see ‘Jay Leno gives Tesla a helping hand in its time of need’
Activist groups such as Tesla Takedown have called on the public to “Sell Your Teslas, Dump Your Stock, Stop Musk Now” (Iliff, 2025a). This particular group’s website displays actions across the U.S., Canada and in western Europe, which include picketing Tesla showrooms.
Trump added fuel to the fire by saying that Tesla protesters should be considered “domestic terrorists” — and blamed Tesla’s falling stock price on “radical left lunatics” who “illegally and collusively boycott” the firm (Espiner et al., 2025). By what logic are boycotts and nonviolent protests no longer protected by the U.S. constitution’s First Amendment?
Musk has not been acting like a political short-timer
Even if Musk does indeed step away from the Trump administration next year he appears to be planning to continue to play a role in electoral politics. Musk has said that his political action committee could fund primary challenges to any Republicans who are not sufficiently supportive of Trump (Beaumont et al., 2024).
During the 2024 presidential campaign Musk contributed around $200 million to America PAC and another $20 million to RBG PAC (Beaumont et al., 2024).
It’s also hard to see Musk refraining from posting political views on X that are sharply partisan. But even if he did, I am skeptical that Democratic voters — who have historically been much more open to buying electric vehicles than Republicans — will have a change of heart.
Tesla’s future may depend upon Republicans
Tesla’s collapsing support from Democrats may explain why Trump took the unusual step of doing an infomercial for the automaker at the White House — and announced that he would buy a Model S. Musk was on hand to chime in, “As a function of the great policies of President Trump and his administration and an act of faith in America, Tesla is going to double vehicle output in the United States within the next two years” (Iliff, 2025b).
Fred Lambert (2025) of Electrek assumed that Musk meant Tesla would increase production from around 700,000 vehicles to 1.4 million in two years. “It’s just a reiteration of Elon’s plans for Tesla in the US, which were established long before Trump came to power or even before Elon officially backed Trump.”
Doubling production would be “an incredible feat,” Lambert (2025) suggested. “I doubt Tesla will have the demand for that, especially if Elon remains involved with the company.”
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RE:SOURCES
- Beaumont, Thomas and Juliet Linderman and Martha Mendoza; 2025. “Elon Musk signals he’ll go beyond supporting Trump to serve as his political enforcer.” PBS. Posted Dec. 10.
- Espiner, Tom and Theo Leggett and Lucy Hooker; 2025. “Trump says anti-Tesla protesters will face ‘hell.'” BBC News. Posted March 12.
- Iliff, Laurence; 2025a. “Elon Musk expresses ‘great difficulty’ running business empire as Tesla stock crashes.” Automotive News (subscription required). Posted March 11.
- ——; 2025b. “Tesla brand damage? U.S. registrations sink 11% in January as EV rivals surge 44%.” Automotive News (subscription required). Posted March 12.
- Lambert, Fred; 2025. “Elon Musk claims Tesla will double US production in next two years, let’s do the math.” Electrek. Posted March 11.
- Marley, Patrick and Trisha Thadani; 2025. “Democrats are focusing on Musk as a key villain in the new Trump era.” Washington Post (subscription required). Posted March 10.
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