Over the last year or so, Musk’s public persona has also hurt sales. The CEO’s exploits as the head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and his fixation on controversial social issues have sparked an anti-Tesla movement in the U.S. and abroad. Reluctant Tesla owners are slapping anti-Musk bumper stickers on their cars. It’s a key reason why the brand saw its U.S. sales fall by 9% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2025, analysts say, and Musk himself admitted on an April earnings call that the firm faced “blowback” for his ties to Trump.
Tesla’s slump isn’t limited to the U.S. market. In Germany and in the U.K., sales plummeted a respective 46% and 62% year-over-year in April. China’s BYD has now sold more EVs than Tesla for two quarters in a row, surpassing the company as the world’s leading manufacturer of EVs.
Still, Tesla’s lead in the U.S. remains significant. No individual brand has gained that much ground on it — instead, the market has become hypercompetitive. The next-biggest EV sellers in the U.S. are General Motors, Ford, and Hyundai Motor Group, which owns Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis, but none come close to Tesla’s Q1 market share of nearly 44%.
Tesla is not the only EV maker facing an uncertain future.
In other words, the entire industry may be in for a rocky ride.
