Report
Supporting Nazis is bad for business – Tesla sales are down across Europe
Musk has openly and wholeheartedly supported the AfD's election campaign. He urged Germans to forget about “past guilt,” alluding to the crimes committed by the Nazis.
Elon Musk’s support for AfD's Alice Weidel and the extreme right-wingers across Europe comes at the cost of Tesla's collapse across the continent: as of January 2025, sales were down -59% in Germany, -63% in France and -12% in the UK, which are the three largest markets for electric cars. Sales also collapsed in Norway (-38%) and Sweden (-44%), where unions have been fighting Musk's company for two years.
The German case is worth examining in detail. Tesla sales had been declining for more than a year, along with those of the entire electric car sector, due to the end of subsidies and high inflation. However, last month the market saw a 53 percent increase in registrations that all Tesla’s competitors benefited from. In contrast, Tesla took a big hit, with registrations for its vehicles at only 3.7% of the total. This is a far cry from the 10% it achieved in 2024. Since the beginning of the year, Musk's company has sold only 1,277 vehicles in Germany.
Furthermore, the polls show a significant drop in public approval of the billionaire-politician. To explain this, many are pointing to his heavy-handed political interference in Germany during the last month. Musk has openly and wholeheartedly supported the AfD's election campaign, going so far as to speak at the opening rally held on January 25 in Halle via videoconference. On that occasion, he urged Germans to forget about “past guilt,” alluding to the crimes committed by the Nazis.
Trump's threats of tariffs on European imports to the United States may also have influenced this decline. Musk is now a member of the U.S. administration, very close to the White House Godfather himself, and this might have hurt his company's image in Europe. In recent days, Tesla's factories in Germany have been the target of anti-fascist protest and boycotts. At the same time, analysts have pointed out that another element of the decline in sales could be consumers waiting for the new Model Y, which is scheduled for release at the end of March.
The anti-Musk movement is growing throughout Europe. On Saturday, February 2, the latest attack against a Tesla showroom occurred in The Hague, Netherlands, with slogans including “No to Nazis” and “Fuck off fascist” written on the walls.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/per-musk-fare-campagna-elettorale-per-i-nazisti-non-paga-in-europa on 2025-02-06