Topline
Tesla investors received more suboptimal news when Elon Musk’s automaker reported sales data below Wall Street’s already muted expectations, as Tesla’s headaches swell in wake of Musk’s cozying up to – and split from – President Donald Trump.
The declining vehicle deliveries came as Elon Musk fell out of favor with Donald Trump.
Key Facts
Tesla said Wednesday morning it delivered 384,122 vehicles to customers during the second quarter, coming in below consensus analyst forecasts of 387,000, according to FactSet data.
That’s a 13% decline compared to Q2 2024, when Tesla delivered 444,000 cars.
That narrowly surpasses 2025’s first quarter as Tesla’s largest year-over-year decline in vehicle deliveries on record.
Tangent
The quarterly vehicle delivery numbers, one of the key barometers of the company’s success, come the same week as Musk’s staredown intensified with Trump, a one-time close ally. Musk, who spent more than $200 million last year to help elect Trump, loudly disagreed with Trump’s spending bill which passed the Senate on Tuesday. Trump said he’d “look” at deporting the naturalized U.S. citizen Musk and would reevaluate government subsidies awarded to Musk’s companies, namely Tesla and aerospace firm SpaceX. Shares of Tesla slipped 5% on Tuesday to their lowest level in more than three weeks, extending their 2025 decline to more than 20%.
Surprising Fact
Musk fired Tesla’s head of North America and Europe operations Omead Afshar, Forbes first reported last week. In a potential sign of the seriousness of the declining sales, Musk will directly oversee sales in the U.S. and Europe following Afshar’s exit, according to Bloomberg.
Key Background
Tesla has wobbled as Musk, the richest man in the world, grew increasingly unpopular in the public eye, with sales slipping as Musk leaned into right-wing politics. Tesla new car registrations declined through each of 2025’s first five months in Europe, while sales in the key markets of China and California also tumbled. The company’s core vehicle business is slumping, but it has made progress in artificial intelligence, as it rolled out a limited launch of its long-awaited robotaxi driverless vehicle service in Austin, Texas, last month.