Tesla, the electric car company of the influential American billionaire Elon Musk, sold fewer cars in 2024 for the first time in more than a decade. In response to the disappointing annual figures, Tesla’s share price fell by more than 6 percent on Friday.
The company sold 1.79 million cars last year, compared to 1.8 million in 2023. Not a dramatic free fall, but less than analysts expected. Moreover, Tesla has stiff competition from the Chinese BYD. The loss of European subsidies for the purchase of electric cars also appears to be hurting Tesla.
Tesla remains the largest seller of electric cars. BYD, which also makes hybrid models, is making significant progress, partly due to several billion euros in Chinese state aid. It sold 1.76 million electric cars last year.
BYD, which also produces hybrid cars, sold a total of more than 41 percent more cars in 2024 than in 2023. Hybrid models in particular proved popular. BYD sold almost 2.5 million of these.
Radical CEO Musk
In the last months of 2024, Tesla’s CEO Musk seemed to be mainly concerned with supporting and financing the future president of the United States Donald Trump. Musk is already considered an influential confidant of Trump. He already has a post as a bureaucratic reformer waiting to be established Department of Government Efficiency foreseen.
Some analysts also fear that Musk will be able to further enrich his own companies during the upcoming Trump presidency.
The American election is not the only election that Musk has interfered in. For example, he recently came into controversy after he expressed his support for the radical Alternative for Germany in an opinion piece in a German newspaper. Musk is also said to have discussed a £100 million donation to Reform, Farage’s party, with Brexit booster Nigel Farage in mid-December. And on his own platform X, Musk apparently obsessively attacks British Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Despite the disappointing annual figures, Tesla actually broke the quarterly record in the last quarter. The company sold about 495 thousand cars. Although Tesla was expected to do even better.
It is therefore difficult to say for the time being whether Musk’s proximity to radical politicians will harm his company. In November and the first half of December the share was on the rise, but only from the end of December has there been a decline.
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