Tesla sales hit three-year low as Musk feuds with Trump
The electric carmaker said customer deliveries fell by 13.5pc in the second quarter of the year, a period in which Mr Musk left his role in the White House and publicly fell out with the US president over his tax and spending bill.
Sales were 384,122 between April and June, down from 443,956 compared to the same quarter a year ago. It is the second straight double-digit drop in quarterly deliveries for Tesla, meaning sales for the year so far are at their lowest since 2022.
The figures put Tesla on track for a second successive year of declining sales.
Falling demand in recent months has been blamed partially on a political backlash against Mr Musk over his support for Mr Trump.
However, growing competition from low-cost Chinese manufacturers has also threatened Tesla's grip on the electric vehicle (EV) market, with Shenzhen-based BYD overtaking Tesla in sales across Britain and Europe in recent months.
Driverless taxis
Meanwhile, Mr Musk has also increasingly focused on Tesla's efforts on his Robotaxi project.
The company last week started offering driverless taxi rides in Texas, and Mr Musk has said Tesla will begin production of a Cybercab next year.
The decline in Tesla's sales led to heightened scrutiny of Mr Musk's work at the White House, where he sat in on cabinet meetings and spearheaded the department of government efficiency (Doge).
This prompted some Tesla investors to raise concerns that Mr Musk was not focused enough on running the company.
In April, Tesla revealed that quarterly sales had fallen by 13pc – its biggest drop since 2012.
Investors had hoped that an upgrade to its best-selling Model Y would revive sales, but the drop in the second quarter was almost as severe.
'Disgusting abomination'
Tensions between Mr Musk and Mr Trump exploded in the last month, shortly after the South African-born businessman stepped down from the White House.
The Tesla boss, who described Mr Trump's 'big beautiful bill' as a 'disgusting abomination', previously claimed the president should be impeached.
Mr Trump hit back by threatening to cancel federal contracts for Mr Musk's rocket company, SpaceX.
The two briefly held a truce, but the row was reignited this week when Mr Musk threatened to start a new political party and Mr Trump suggested he could deport him.
Mr Musk has publicly criticised Mr Trump's bill for adding to the ballooning US deficit, but the legislation also cuts incentives for electric cars and renewable energy, which have boosted Tesla sales.
The company's shares fell by 5pc on Tuesday amid the widening rift between the pair, although they rose on Wednesday because the sales drop was less severe than some analysts had feared.
Mr Musk has predicted that Tesla will have millions of robotaxis in operation this year.
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CBS News anchor swipes at parent company for settling Trump lawsuit ‘it said is without basis in law and fact'
John Dickerson ended Wednesday's broadcast of CBS Evening News by subtly swiping at the network's corporate boss Paramount for shelling out $16 million to settle Donald Trump's lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview, noting that the company itself said the president's case 'is without basis in law and fact.' The veteran anchor's commentary was even more pointed on the show he hosts for the network's streaming platform, as he noted that the settlement 'poses a new obstacle' for the network's journalists. 'Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you've traded away that trust?' Dickerson pondered. Journalists and free speech advocates have absolutely pilloried Paramount for capitulating to the media-bashing president in a case that legal experts described as frivolous and the network's own lawyers said was completely without merit, warning that it sets an increasingly dangerous precedent. 'Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated,' the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression stated. 'This settlement will only embolden the president to continue his flurry of baseless lawsuits against the press — and against the American people's ability to hear the news free from government intrusion.' Beyond that, the company is facing the threat of civil litigation and congressional probes over allegations that it violated anti-bribery statutes, as Paramount needs the Trump administration to approve its massive $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media. Paramount, for its part, has insisted that the lawsuit is 'completely separate from, and unrelated to' the transaction and the FCC approval process. At the end of Wednesday's telecast of CBS Evening News, Dickerson delivered a fairly straightforward recap of the settlement and what led up to it, which was the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just ahead of the 2024 election. 'Under the terms of the settlement worked out with a mediator, Paramount will pay $16 million to cover Mr. Trump's legal costs. Whatever's left will go to his presidential library. No money will be paid directly to the president,' Dickerson noted. 'The settlement does not require an apology or expression of regret for the editing of the interview, which was done in accordance with long-held CBS News standards and widely accepted journalistic practices.' The news host also pointed out that despite Trump's allegations that CBS ran a different portion of Harris' answer to a question during a Face the Nation promotional clip to make her look better, the network has repeatedly denied this. Additionally, Dickerson explained that the 60 Minutes transcript revealed that the president falsely claimed the network had pulled a response from another question asked of Harris and 'deceptively edited' it in. After telling viewers that a senior Paramount executive told shareholders this week that the corporation only settled to avoid what he called the 'high and somewhat unpredictable costs of legal defense, Dickerson brought up that this took place as the company is looking to close the Skydance merger. 'That deal needs Trump administration approval,' he concluded. 'The corporation said the settlement of the Trump lawsuit is completely separate from and unrelated to the merger. In the end, Paramount decided to settle a suit it said is without basis in law and fact and an affront to the First Amendment.' Over on CBS Evening News Plus, which airs on Paramount's streamers, Dickerson was even less sparing in his criticism of the network's corporate overlords. 'We pride ourselves on our BS detector, so it ought to work on ourselves, too. When it doesn't, the stakes are real, a loss of public trust, the spread of misinformation,' he said in a monologue focused on Paramount's payoff to the president. 'A visitor to our newsrooms might wonder why we debate a single word for so long, why it takes hours to answer the simple question, what is this story about, why there's a cry of frustration when a detail is off by an inch,' Dickerson continued. 'That is what it looks like when it is deeply felt, when the audience's concerns become ours, passed by bucket brigade from the subjects of our stories to correspondents, to producers, to editors, fact-checkers, and writers.' Noting that the 'obstacles to getting it right are many,' he then declared that the settlement 'poses a new obstacle' before asking: 'Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you've traded away that trust?' 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'People are still angry and frustrated and morale is very low.' Former CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian called the settlement 'the nadir for the network' and 'a breach of the public trust Murrow, Cronkite, Hewitt and thousands of us worked decades to build.'
