Data Suggests Elon Musk Has Deeply Alienated Tesla's Core Market

He's making enemies out of customers.

Market Tumble

By all accounts, Tesla is still the go-to electric vehicle brand worldwide. But as new data shows, its position as kingpin is slipping — almost certainly in part because the toxic antics of CEO Elon Musk is alienating the car brand's key buyers.

In California, the largest car market in the country and where the automaker once called home, registration of Tesla vehicles dropped a precipitous 24 percent between April and June — the third straight quarter that sales have fallen in the state, Reuters reports.

The figure comes from the latest analysis from the California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA), which suggested that "Tesla's allure seems to be wearing off" with buyers in the state.

Zooming out, sales from the first quarter show that Tesla's share of the battery EV market has dropped by 6.4 percent from last year — a "significant" loss, the report found.

Burning Bridges

For better or worse, Tesla's allure is inextricable from Musk's, whose popularity was once a boon to the brand. But his eccentric behavior and regressive politics in recent years has done little to win the hearts and minds of California's largely liberal demographic, which is one that Tesla can't afford to lose: the state accounts for 10 percent of Tesla's global deliveries, according to Reuters.

And yet, it's no secret that Musk has turned his back on the Golden State, relocating Tesla headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, Texas, in 2021. All the while, he's relentlessly railed against the state's progressive politics.

More broadly, Musk has been outspokenly transphobic, frequently makes thinly veiled racist remarks, and rambles incomprehensibly about the "woke mind virus." Now, it's been revealed that he reportedly made a $45 million a month donation to Donald Trump. The fact that he promised earlier this year that he wouldn't donate to either party's presidential candidate epitomizes Musk's rightward fence-sitting that infuriates the very eco-conscious liberals that buy EVs.

Past Its Peak

Some of the dwindling sales may be down to the increase in compelling EV offerings from competitors, like Ford, Hyundai, and BMW — all of which saw sales surge by double-digit percentages this year, Reuters noted. And with such a dominant position in the EV market for so long, Tesla may also be running out of buyers to conquer.

But multiple surveys this year have implicated Musk's behavior as a major culprit for the downturn. As one poll released in April showed, the proportion of Democrats that bought Tesla vehicles dropped by a staggering 60 percent during October and November last year. Nearly 47 percent of California's registered voters are Democrats, while just 24 percent are Republicans.

Whatever the cause — likely a mix of economic realities and Musk's personal stench — the numbers don't lie: California Tesla sales are down by over 17 percent compared to last year, and that's gotta sting.

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