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.

    • Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      I feel this very much, yet at the same time feel like people need to understand that it is politics.

      People try so hard to compartmentalize politics as this thing not to bring up where it “doesn’t belong” but yet politics that you ignore will eventually push themselves into those places eventually.

      Nazi ideology is a political ideology. A rotten, awful one, but one nonetheless.

      Its why you can’t afford to sit out politics, ever.

    • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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      20 hours ago

      I could admire someone sticking to their principles in face of losing money, but when the principles are “be a dick to marginalised people for the lulz” you’ve just got a garbage human being