Elon Musk has repeatedly denied that the truth that he went “all-in on Donald Trump,” the controversial former president, is negatively affecting his companies. Now, he went so far as claiming that Tesla’s gross sales are at ‘all-time highs.’
Throughout an X House yesterday, the Tesla CEO was requested what he thinks of the claims that his assist of Trump is affecting Tesla negatively.
Musk responded:
Tesla’s gross sales are literally doing nice. We’re hitting all-time highs. I believe folks actually care in regards to the high quality of the product versus whether or not they agree or disagree with the CEO’s views. The CEO of any given firm goes to have political beliefs. On the finish of the day what issues is that if Tesla makes an awesome product, and other people like shopping for nice merchandise.
There are a couple of attention-grabbing issues right here.
First off, “gross sales are hitting all-time highs.” There are lots of methods to interpret this, however just one could make Musk proper: Tesla had its finest Q3 for car deliveries final quarter:
With 463,000 car deliveries final quarter, Tesla technically beat its final Q3 file, however the purpose has extra to do with Q3 2023 than 2024.
Tesla claimed that “a sequential decline in volumes was brought on by deliberate downtimes for manufacturing unit upgrades.” With out that, Tesla would have seemingly been flat on deliveries in Q3 2024 versus final 12 months.
This delayed some shipments into This fall 2023 – leading to Tesla’s all-time supply excessive.
However Musk can’t deny that Tesla’s efficiency in 2024 has been lower than stellar.
Tesla’s whole deliveries in 2024 (1,293,656) are nonetheless down greater than 30,000 models in comparison with the primary three quarters in 2023 (1,324,074).
That’s regardless of Tesla including the Cybertruck to the lineup, which began to contribute meaningfully final quarter. It’s arduous to swallow for a corporation that’s all about development. The chart above exhibits that the expansion between 2020 and 2023 was awe-inspiring, but it surely stopped in 2024.
Tesla’s inventory efficiency can also be intently monitoring its development in deliveries after which the stagnation:
In 2023, Tesla began chopping costs, which negatively affected its gross margins and earnings, and it countered the expansion in deliveries when it comes to inventory efficiency.
As for the influence of Musk’s very lively and public assist of Trump on Tesla’s gross sales, that’s certainly extra nuanced.
There have been many polls in regards to the situation displaying that automotive patrons are much less desirous about shopping for Tesla autos on account of Elon Musk, but it surely’s arduous to inform how the polls translate into the fact of automotive purchases, that are vital choices for many households.
Nonetheless, there have been direct examples of Tesla shedding out on gross sales due to Musk’s assist of Trump. For instance, Rossmann, one of many largest pharmacy chains in Europe and a long-time Tesla shopper, mentioned that it could cease changing its fleet to Tesla autos due to Musk’s assist of Trump and the previous president’s anti-environmentalist insurance policies.
Electrek’s Take
It’s not likely encouraging that Elon is oblivious to Tesla’s present scenario. I really feel prefer it’s a bit deceptive to say that Tesla’s gross sales are “hitting all-time highs” when Tesla is on observe to have its first down 12 months in deliveries in its existence regardless of including a car to its lineup for the primary time since 2020.
It’s nearly like he’s simply repeating what his greatest followers on X tweet him on a regular basis. He lives in a special actuality due to the echo chamber he constructed for himself and his followers on X.
I do know Tesla followers like to say that it’s about macroeconomics and rates of interest, which undoubtedly have an effect, however Tesla additionally enormously lowered its costs during the last 12 months and supplied backed rates of interest.
At this level, it’s a bit ridiculous to behave as if Tesla doesn’t have a broader situation. As for the influence of Elon’s assist, it’s admittedly not possible to quantify, however I really feel prefer it’s secure to say that it has, on the very least, some influence.
Lastly, it’s additionally unfair for Elon to say that “each CEO has political beliefs” as if he’s sharing his like everybody else. Not each CEO calls the opposite celebration, “the celebration of hate”, and offers thousands and thousands of {dollars} to elect a candidate with a protracted observe file that goes in opposition to Tesla’s mission to speed up the arrival of sustainable power.
CEOs additionally don’t all go on the marketing campaign path and get photographed leaping up and down like highschool cheerleaders behind Trump.
No matter occurs subsequent month, I doubt Elon’s choice will age nicely. Even when Trump wins, I’d be shocked if he doesn’t activate Elon inside a 12 months.
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