Elon Musk can either run Tesla, or he can carry on as President Trump’s first buddy. “But he can’t do both,” said Matthew Lynn in The Daily Telegraph. The tech billionaire’s controversial role as Doge’s slasher-in-chief is starting to inflict “real damage” on his electric car firm, with sales plummeting by more than 70% in Australia and Germany, and 45% in Europe overall compared with this time last year. Tesla’s share price has halved; showrooms are being picketed; and liberals are covering their Teslas with stickers reading “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy”.
The carmaker was already facing a “much more crowded market”, said Jim Norton in the same paper, because Chinese rivals have muscled their way in with cheaper alternatives. But Musk’s political antics – slashing federal jobs in the US, blasting European leaders, endorsing far-right parties – have turned one of the most coveted electric vehicle brands “toxic”.
This is not how oligarchy is meant to work, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. And both Musk and Trump seem to be “rattled”: just look at last week’s tragic Tesla sales pitch on the White House lawn, where the US president tried to flog Musk’s electric vehicles to his gas-guzzler, pick-up-driving Maga faithful. Trump is all about winning, so he’ll hate the impression that being on Team Trump has the “reverse Midas touch”.
As for Musk, said Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic, I’ve never seen the poor centi-billionaire looking so “defeated”. It’s not just Tesla. European governments are also looking for alternatives to replace Musk’s Starlink satellites. His personal brand is crumbling under the weight of his brash political interventions – and that’s a big problem for the world’s richest man.
Musk’s value rests on a certain “image”: that he, a brilliant “Tony Stark type”, can bend the world to his will through the force of his “singular ability”. That perception has fuelled confidence in his firms, even as the mogul took “wild business bets”. But “slashing” government services relied upon by millions of Americans, as he is doing at Doge, is a risk “orders of magnitude” larger than anything he’s done before. “Musk is playing a dangerous game, and he looks to be losing control of the narrative.”