EV car giant Tesla continues to pay the price for Elon Musk’s role at DOGE, his support for the far right, and his political interventions, as some investors openly call for Musk’s removal.

Tesla reported a 13 percent drop in vehicle sales in the first three months of the year, making it the electric vehicle maker’s worst quarter since 2022, the Guardian reported.

Tesla reported deliveries of 336,681 vehicles globally in the January-March quarter, the newspaper reported. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected much higher deliveries of 408,000. The figure was down from sales of 387,000 in the same period a year ago.

Red flags

What made this sales drop even more worrying for Elon Musk, is that it came despite deep discounts, zero financing and other incentives, and growing concern at some of Tesla’s outdated models compared to its rivals.

And the sales decline came despite US President Donald Trump turning the White House driveway into a Tesla showroom, when he publicly purchased a red Model S costing $80,000 for his staff to use.

It is a stark warning that Tesla’s first-quarter earnings report, which is due later this month, is likely to disappoint investors and Wall Street.

Matt Britzman, a senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown was quoted by the Guardian as saying: “The scale is worse than many had expected.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat it, Tesla’s first-quarter delivery numbers are a disappointment, though many investors were already preparing for a soft number,” Britzman reportedly said.

The “brand is under pressure”, Britzman reportedly said. “It’s rare to see sentiment toward a company so closely tied to a polarising White House, and until Musk pulls his focus back to Tesla, shares will remain volatile.”

Sales troubles

The writing has been on the wall for over a month now that Tesla sales are in trouble, amid a growing consumer boycott of Tesla EVs that has seen owners returning their Teslas at “record levels” as consumers reacted to Musk’s activities within the Trump administration.

Last month Electrek reported that Tesla as a brand could be finished in Germany, after T-Online conducted a survey of over 100,000 Germans which revealed that 94 percent of respondents won’t buy a Tesla vehicle ever again.

Teslas is facing ongoing protests at Tesla stores and service centres in the US, and EVs and charging stations are being vandalised after Musk dismantled entire federal agencies in his role as the head of the so-called “department of government efficiency”.

Musk also enraged many when he made twice made a straight arm gesture at a rally that his estranged daughter has labelled as “definitely a nazi salute”.

It comes after it was revealed in February the Texas-based electric vehicle (EV) had sold less than 16,000 vehicles across Europe in January 2025.

Indeed, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) in January revealed Tesla sales were down 44 percent on average in January, across 25 countries in the EU, the UK, Norway and Switzerland.

Tesla sold 9,945 vehicles in Europe in January, down 45 percent from last year’s 18,161, which resulted in Tesla suffering its single worst day sell-off since October 2024.