Is Tesla screwed? Falling sales and Musk’s behavior fuel investor fear

Elon Musk’s anger over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was evident this week as the world’s richest man took to X, the social media platform he owns, to lambast President Donald Trump’s signature legislation. But there’s plenty of anger from investors at the performance of his own electric vehicle company, Tesla, which again posted weak delivery results for its electric vehicles.

The company delivered just over 384,000 vehicles in the second quarter, only marginally better than the previous three months, which were the company’s worst in more than two years. Overall, the number of cars Tesla delivered in April, May, and June this year was down 13% from the year before.

It caps a difficult time for Musk, whose personal and business brands have taken a tumble. The proportion of people who dislike the EV company has more than doubled in the last two years, according to data from YouGov, which tracks public sentiment about the firm. In all, 35.2% of Americans have a negative view of Tesla, up from just 16.5% two years earlier, and nearly as many as those who now hold a positive view of the company. That correlates with Musk’s personal popularity in the same YouGov surveys, with people moving from being on the fence about him to reporting actively disliking him.

And his continued engagement in U.S. politics is only turning people against him more, analysts believe. “Elon Musk’s frustration boiled over with the latest Senate budget deficit, reneging on his promise to focus more on his businesses,” write Jed Dorsheimer and Mark Shooter, analysts at William Blair. “We only see downside from these actions, and would prefer effort to be channeled towards the robotaxi rollout at this critical juncture.” (Tesla did not immediately respond to Fast Company‘s request for comment.)

That said, there are green shoots ahead. The number of deliveries this last quarter wasn’t quite as bad as William Blair analysts feared. In fact, it beat their estimate by 8%. “We expect the stock to react positively as investors feared worse,” Dorsheimer and Shooter said.

The issue Tesla faces isn’t with brand perception among its own customers, but with trying to attract new ones, suggest analysts at Forrester. “Tesla is a compelling case study in the divergence between customer experience and brand perception,” explains Keith Johnston, group research director at Forrester. “While Tesla remains top-of-mind for many noncustomers, boasting above-average salience, they are less likely to perceive it as trustworthy, and even less inclined to buy it.”

It’s a major issue, agrees Jay Nagley, a consultant at Redspy Automotive Consultancy. “You can still disapprove of a company and buy its products, because nobody else knows you’re doing it,” he says. “You might publicly disapprove of McDonald’s and go and have a crafty burger from time to time, but you can’t do that with Tesla. It’s sitting in your driveway. You get out of it. Your friends see you in it all the time. So it’s a constant source of potential awkwardness and embarrassment.”

This comes on top of Tesla facing significant challenges in China, which has traditionally been one of its biggest markets. In the first half of 2025, China accounted for nearly half of Tesla’s global deliveries, with Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory alone producing almost 50% of all Tesla vehicles delivered worldwide. The problem is Tesla faces growing competition from Chinese automakers like BYD, which reported one million EV sales in the first half of 2025 compared to Tesla’s 721,000. BYD’s vehicles, often cheaper and equipped with advanced features like a five-minute charging system, are eroding Tesla’s market share, particularly in China.

“While the company has seen significant weakness in China in previous quarters given the rising competitive landscape across EVs, Tesla saw a rebound in June with sales increasing for the first time in eight months reflecting higher demand for its updated Model Y as deliveries in the region are starting to slowly turn a corner,” says Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Ives remains bullish on Tesla and Musk’s ability to turn the ship around. “If Musk continues to lead and remain in the driver’s seat, we believe Tesla is on a path to an accelerated growth path over the coming years with deliveries expected to ramp in the back-half of 2025 following the Model Y refresh cycle,” he says. The company plans to release a lower-cost Model Y in the second half of the year. That would be important because Tesla has traditionally been slow at updating its models, something Nagley attributes to Musk’s naiveté about how the auto industry operates.

But even if the Model Y succeeds, there’s a Trump-shaped obstacle in the way to Tesla’s success going forward. The U.S. president is eliminating the EV tax credit that helped bolster Tesla’s sales, which tilts the scales back in favor of gas-powered cars, which are cheaper than electric alternatives. And tariffs from China on battery materials will push Tesla costs up further.

“While Musk’s departure from DOGE brought back Tesla’s most important asset,” Ives says, “the feud between Musk and Trump brings further frustration to investors with more fear around the Trump administration becoming more hawkish around government-related spending tied to Tesla, especially the autonomous future with AV regulations key for Robotaxis and Cybercabs.”