Elon Musk’s polarizing political actions since acquiring Twitter, later rebranded X, in 2022 dramatically hurt the automaker’s U.S. sales, underscoring how deeply its fortunes are intertwined with the billionaire’s persona.
The findings quantify for the first time how the political actions of the world’s wealthiest person – including his role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration – may have cost Tesla billions in lost vehicle sales while benefiting rival electric carmakers.
Tesla’s U.S. sales would have been between 67% and 83% higher, or about 1 million to 1.26 million additional vehicles, from October 2022 to April 2025, had it not been for what researchers call the “Musk partisan effect,” according to a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research by Yale University economists.
Elon Musk’s
politicsNazism cost his firm Tesla more than one million EV salesFixed it.
It should have cost him all the Tesla sales. The fact that it didn’t is creepy and scary
As a consequence, he’s the richest person in the world and Tesla is a 1.5 Trillion dollar company. It has TEN times the P/E of companies like apple, microsoft, and google. More than 5x Nvidia, even.
Why do we live in a world that rewards the worst shit? I mean even Trump is a real billionaire now.
P/E?
Price to earnings ratio. Low p/e means good value, high is either inflated, or a signal that people think their earnings will increase in the future.
I love Electric cars and Sattelite internet and Spaceships.
WTF has this asshole made all the things I love awful and unacceptable.
These guys actually made me realize satellite grids are not a good idea, they’re in places they’re not supposed to be and use lights that weren’t authorized, meaning about 1/3 of ground-based telescope exposures are being ruined right now. Negative externalities abound.
How about horizon pollution, I can see those shitty things with my own eyes.
How about the huge increase in risk of a Kessler effect?
How about that for most people this won’t even be necessary as most people don’t need low latency satellite internet? I’m sorry if you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean and have to deal with a high ping while playing fortnite or something but your low ping is not worth the downsides
Or destroying the ozone layer.
Up to 4-5 Starlink satellites now burn up in Earth’s atmosphere daily, releasing aluminum oxide particles that catalyze ozone destruction. Each 250kg satellite releases about 30 kg of aluminum oxide when it burns up, forming nanoparticles that persist in the stratosphere for 20–30 years, continuously damaging the ozone layer. With plans for up to 42,000 Starlink satellites (plus thousands more from other companies) all on 5-year replacement cycles, annual reentries could exceed 8,000 by the 2030s, adding 360 metric tons of aluminum oxide per year, 640% above natural levels.
The Montreal Protocol, which successfully phased out CFCs and enabled ozone recovery, does not cover aluminum oxide pollution from satellites. The FCC currently categorizes satellites as “extraterritorial activities” exempt from National Environmental Policy Act review, meaning no environmental assessment is required before launch approval. By the time the full impacts appear in the 2040s–2050s, the damage could be irreversible.
Their orbit is too low for Kessler syndrome. If every starlink blew up today, it would only take a few years for all the debris to fall to earth. It’s the higher geosynchronous orbit you gotta worry about.
round-based telescope exposures are being ruined right now. Negative externalities abound.
I can’t help but think we could have done it with a reasonable number of sats. we put so many up it was like it was just a flex to make spacex profitable
I feel the exact same way about Thiel and “Things Named After Lord of the Rings.”
It’s so endlessly infuriating watching billionaires actively turn things we care about against us.
So their stock valuation is going to go down to normal levels, right? …right?
More.
MORE!
Customer base most likely to hate nazis: people who buy EVs.
Customer base most likely to love nazis: people who buy trucks that get 2 mpg.
Guess the pedo genius found that math problem a little too difficult.
Elon’s Brain: If I buy twitter, surely I can influence public opinion
Public Opinion: Whoa this guy is a real piece of shit
He doesn’t care, there is nothing that can really ruin him financially, and the idea that he would ever be convicted for a crime is ridiculous as well.
These people, the ones who have control over the major levers of power, they have completely insulated themselves from accountability, they are all psychopaths, and many are nearing the ends of their lives, so they are particularly nihilistic and dismissive of the consequences of their actions.
He doesn’t care
Ohh but he does, he has a terribly thin skin. He’ll never hurt for money, but he’s deperate to make his mark on the work that isn’t branded an utter failure.
unlike rescue submarines, traffic tunnels, hyperloop, Mars landers, electric semi trucks, his penis, tesla ventillators, FSD…
Yeah we gotta remember this is a guy who paid someone to play Diablo for him in an attempt to look cool.
Eh, I dunno, none of that is really dissuading my opinion, and in my experience most “normies” still see him as a visionary, albeit an erratic and sometimes arrogant one. He has a “cocoon” of acknowledgment, and his place in the history books is ensured at this point.
The companies were good before he bought them. The only visionary thing he did was buy them. Every time he gets in there and starts flipping switches and pulling knobs, they become worth much less.
And yet that’s all he shall ever be remembered as. The moment he’s dead, make sure every statue, plaq and memorial he tries having built is rusted always by some magical compound that rhymes with peach
And he wants $1 trillion to keep burying the company.
And he’ll probably get it.
What a world we live in.
Elon never reaches milestones, so the $1T thing won’t happen.
He met every last milestone for the previous compensation package everyone called utterly ridiculous and unachievable last time, so I wouldn’t count against it, even if no one deserves that much compensation for meeting those goals.
And at least the first couple aren’t that hard to reach in the time span provided. The annualized growth to meet them isn’t high, and the payout just for that is also ridiculous
And he has a fever dream about robot butlers and suddenly his stock is at an all time high and he’s negotiating a trillion dollar payday. Make it make sense.
I wouldn’t use a Tesla as a gender neutral bathroom let alone buy one.
“Musk partisan effect”
Fucking hell, these people can euphemism their way out of anything. It’s the Musk Is A Fucking Nazi effect. Just say it as it is. How is this guy still allowed to be a director of a company that he is actively hurting? Are there no laws regarding fiduciary duty? Shareholders ought to be rearing him to shreds, not voting to pay him more.
The richest man in the world is the main shareholder. You can thank our government for giving him massive tax payer subsidies instead of investing in multiple American run businesses. I’ve noticed our government likes to give all of our tax dollars to South African apartheid Nazis who are now looting our government and stripping our freedoms because they think they haven’t gotten enough.
It’s the “piece of shit human being is rejected by sane people effect” and has been a thing since the dawn of civilization.
He took his heart and threw it out to the world for that company. /s
You’ve cost us billions in sales! Your views are killing the company!!
Are you going to fire me?
No! We’re going to pay you MORE!!
and triple the value of your stock! Take THAT!
profit drop?? TSLA now at $460. The worse they do by any economic measure, the better the stock does.
I was thinking the trillion dollar package was a way to fire musk while letting him save some face
Musk has kompromats on board of directors and shareholders.
They’re all his family and friends
Indeed. They literally just support the nazism.
Feels like if he could just STFU he’d be golden. I remember when he was widely seen in a positive light. He was practically messianic on Reddit back in the day. Then his innate pettiness came out when he called that diver a peado. It feels like his mask slipped then and everything after just reinforced the fact that he’s an unchecked and uncaring megalomaniac.
That’s why a lot of people admired him until early 2010s. Hell, I have a photo from 2014 pride parade with a rainbow model S being centre of attention.
Luckily for us, shutting up is a rare skill for such assholes.
One million sales? It needs to be all sales. Don’t buy swasticars.
I saw one a week or two ago with several bumper stickers apologizing for Musk and literally explaining that they got the car before we knew.
For as long as Musk has been in the picture, he has been a walking red flag inferno. “I bought it before he went crazy!” Dude, it has been so clear from the beginning he’s crazy, you’re just ignorant AF.
People are so stupid. Even when I told them he is crazy they try to defend the guy. Only now they come with these dumb bumper stickers as they cannot find ways to defend him anymore, so they try to cover their ass with a fucking sticker.
For a while, I saw them all over the fucking place, probably 50 on my commute.
These days I see 2-3 and very rarely see the trucks. I wonder where they all are now. I seeing 10 of the trucks per day. Now, maybe one.
For a while, I saw them all over the fucking place, probably 50 on my commute.
Same. Almost 1 in 3 cars that I saw, at one point, was a Tesla (in certain areas).
They’re still around, but definitely not nearly as many.
I wonder where they all are now.
scrapyards. impossible to fix, written off by insurance for minor crashes. GREEN.
You’re kinda lucky. I see them everywhere with their goofy vanity plates, and way too many swastitruks with crazy wraps.
I don’t think they’re all muahaha nazis, but they do have an air of aimless consumer zombies who ignorantly bought something ridiculous to show everybody how cool they are. (Kinda like musk himself.)
And they sure do drive like their “autopilot” could do a better job. Geeze.
As far as most dangerous, aggressive, petty idiots on the road go, my low expectations are tied between “tesla products” and “white pickup trucks with obnoxious stickers and a toolbox.” Followed very closely by “My brand new enormous Mercedes SUV says I can do whatever I want.”
Most of the the jackwagons in my area must have sold them to jackwagons in your area :)
Honestly surprised it is so low.
And yet Tesla sales are increasing once more 🤷♂️ People are stupid, don’t care or both.
only in US.
