Elon Musk revealing himself to be a MAGA troll cost Tesla in the range of $50 billion in sales over the past three years.
Odd, isn’t it, that the Tesla board still wants to give the self-glossed “genius” a compensation package worth a trillion dollars.
This is “How Not to Run a Business for $200” in “Jeopardy.”
They ought to perp-walk the guy out the front door.
The number there comes from an analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which used “county-level, monthly data on new vehicle registrations” to “leverage how changes in vehicle sales over time diverge across counties with differing shares of Democratic and Republican voters.”
The conclusion:
“Without the Musk partisan effect, Tesla sales between October 2022 and April 2025 would have been 67-83% higher, equivalent to 1-1.26 million more vehicles.”
With Teslas starting at just under $50,000, 1 million times $50,000 comes to $50 billion, so, the $50 billion number I lead with is probably grossly conservative.
If you’re not a Musk fan, and seriously, who is, or ever was – dude has always been a weirdo – that’s the good news.
The better news: Musk revealing himself to be a MAGA troll “also increased the sales of other automakers’ electric and hybrid vehicles 17-22% because of substitution,” per the researchers.
Translation: people who wanted EVs and hybrids and were turned off by Musk making an ass of himself online and in DC just moved on to other companies.
The study found a “nearly one-for-one substitution” from Teslas to other EVs and hybrids.
Flip side, Musk has had no success in convincing MAGAs to join the EV/hybrid marketplace.
The data showed that Musk’s public persona “significantly reduces liberal and Democratic support for Tesla without increasing conservative and Republican support.”
Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
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Chris Graham
