Elon Musk’s support of President Donald Trump had catastrophic effects on Tesla brand loyalty, according to new data released the day Musk was awarded $29 billion in the form of 96 million shares.
The numbers suggest Tesla sales to existing owners looking for a new car plummeted from 73 percent—a market leader—to 49.9 percent following Musk’s decision to endorse the now-president, following an assassination attempt against him near Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer.
That peak came in June 2024, according to data from S&P Global Mobility via Reuters, which analyzed vehicle registration in 50 states and showed a cliff drop in July the same year.
The 49.9 percent nadir was reached last March, ultimately taking its numbers from best-in-class to just below average—although it enjoyed a resurgence of sorts to 57.4 percent in May, the last time data was gathered.
Tom Libby, an analyst at S&P said the plunge was “unprecedented,” adding, “I’ve never seen this rapid of a decline in such a short period of time.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Tesla for further comment on the plummet depicted in the data, and Musk’s new pay bump despite shrinking market share, reported by The New York Times to be an act of “good faith” to help keep hold of Musk’s attention.
Tesla investors are reported to have been growing weary with the CEO’s forays into politics at the expense of their earnings, with the share award thought to be an effort to ease this tension. Musk, meanwhile, was keen on improving his 13 percent share position to firewall himself from “activist” shareholders.
The EV firm has faced a challenging period in recent months due to Musk’s support of Trump, with boycotts and vandalism against the brand’s cars and facilities spiking. In April, Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja pointed to “several weeks of lost production” caused by re-equipping factories to release a new wave of Model Ys and the “negative impact of vandalism and unwarranted hostility towards our brand and people” as causes for the turbulent trading.
Activist group Tesla Takedown has called on people to “Sell Your Teslas—Dump Your Stock—Stop Musk Now,” leading to peaceful protests outside the company’s facilities, while bumper stickers reading “I bought this before Elon went crazy” have become a common sight.
Beyond this, there has also been a trend of vandalism towards vehicles, property, charging points, and dealerships. Incidents including arson have been reported in the U.S.—and abroad, particularly in Europe and Canada—in a move described by Attorney General Pam Bondi as “domestic terrorism” in the spring, which led to at least three arrests.
Meanwhile, Tesla has not released a new model for some time beyond the commercially toothless Cybertruck, reported by Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book to have sold just 4,306 times in Q2 of 2025, a 50.8 percent drop year on year. That same data set, published July 2025, showed a 10.8 percent in Tesla’s year-to-date sales compared with 2024.
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