How Twitter and Washington Hit Tesla

Chapter 01

A sink and a sell-off

In late October 2022, Elon Musk walked into Twitter's San Francisco office carrying a sink, a stunt to mark the end of a six-month fight over buying the company. The $44 billion all-cash deal closed that week. Most accounts date the closing to October 27, 2022, while some CNBC reports give October 28.

For Tesla, the purchase started to matter well before the papers were signed. Musk's wealth sat largely in Tesla stock, and he needed cash to fund his equity share of the deal. On April 26, 2022, the day after Twitter's board accepted his offer, Tesla shares closed down more than 12 percent. Over the following months he sold Tesla stock in batches in April, August, November and December. A filing in early November showed sales of at least $3.95 billion after the deal closed, and another round over the three days ending December 14 covered about 22 million shares worth close to $3.6 billion. CNBC tallied the total since April at roughly $23 billion.

The selling landed on a falling stock. On November 9, 2022, Tesla shares sank to almost a two-year low, and CNBC tied the move to the stock sales and to concern that Twitter was taking Musk's time. By late December the same worry was still in the headlines, alongside questions about demand for Tesla's cars. Some longtime Tesla bulls called on the board to steer Musk's attention back to the carmaker.

Chapter 02

From Twitter to X

Musk kept reshaping the social network. Over the weekend of July 22 and 23, 2023, he announced that the company would drop the Twitter name, and on Monday, July 24, the blue bird logo gave way to an X. He described the change as a step toward an everything app that could one day handle messaging, video and payments. The rename did not change Tesla's business directly, but it tied Musk's most public platform even more closely to his own name and views, and his posts there became a regular part of how investors and car buyers judged him.

Chapter 03

The 2024 campaign

In 2024 Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president and spent heavily on the race. CBS News, citing Federal Election Commission filings, reported that he put at least $277 million behind Trump and other Republicans, which made him the largest donor of the cycle in either party. Just under $239 million of that went to America PAC. The PAC spent about $154.5 million on canvassing and digital ads, and it drew attention for paying registered voters who signed a petition, along with a chance to win $1 million.

Tesla's own numbers were already softening. The company delivered about 1.79 million vehicles in 2024, down from about 1.81 million in 2023, the first annual decline in its history.

Chapter 04

Inside the government

After Trump took office in January 2025, Musk joined the administration as a special government employee and became the public face of the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, an effort to cut federal spending and staff. Special government employees are limited to 130 days of work in a 365-day period, and May 30, 2025, was his 130th day. In an Oval Office appearance marking his exit, Trump said Musk's work "has been without comparison in modern history." A senior administration official told CBS News that Musk would remain a friend and adviser to the president.

Chapter 05

Protests, fires and a federal task force

While Musk was in Washington, Tesla stores became protest sites. A campaign called Tesla Takedown urged owners to sell their cars and investors to sell their shares, and asked supporters to picket showrooms. On its global day of action in late March 2025, organizers counted protests in at least 253 cities. Most of the demonstrations were peaceful. Others were not. NPR reported at least 80 cases of vandalism or arson against Tesla vehicles and property in the United States and Canada, including Molotov cocktails thrown at cars and charging stations. In Las Vegas, police said Teslas were set on fire and shot in what they called a targeted attack.

The federal government treated the attacks as a priority. Attorney General Pam Bondi described them as domestic terrorism, and three people faced federal charges tied to incidents in Colorado, South Carolina and Oregon. The FBI set up a task force with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate.

Investors were reacting too. On March 10, 2025, Tesla shares fell about 15 percent, their steepest one-day drop in five years.

Chapter 06

What the sales and surveys showed

The sales drop was sharpest in Europe. Registrations in the European Union, the U.K., Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein fell 45 percent in January 2025 compared with January 2024. In July, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association counted 8,837 new Teslas, down 40 percent from a year earlier, while BYD's registrations there more than tripled. Over the first eight months of the year Tesla's European registrations were down about 33 percent, even as battery-electric car sales across the region grew. Tesla faced stronger competition from Chinese brands at the same time, and CNBC reported European buyers switching to them, so the share of the decline caused by Musk's politics is hard to isolate.

Surveys tried to measure the brand effect. In a Morgan Stanley survey of investors in March 2025, 85 percent said Musk's political involvement was having a negative or extremely negative effect on Tesla. A CNBC survey in April found that about half of Americans held a negative view of Tesla and of Musk. In the Axios Harris Poll of America's 100 most visible companies, Tesla fell 32 places to 95th. NPR reported a split in buyers: Musk was gaining fans among Republicans, but the liberals, moderates and independents he was losing were the groups more likely to consider an electric car in the first place.

Chapter 07

A hard first quarter

Tesla's first-quarter 2025 report, released April 22, made the slump concrete. Deliveries were down 13 percent from a year earlier, the biggest quarterly decline in the company's history. Revenue from selling cars fell 20 percent, total revenue slid 9 percent to $19.3 billion against analyst expectations of $21.3 billion, and net income fell 71 percent to $409 million from $1.39 billion. On the call, Musk said the time he spent on DOGE would "drop significantly" starting in May, to perhaps one or two days a week. He also defended the work, saying, "If the ship of America goes down, we all go down with it." The stock rose the next day, helped in part by Trump's comments on China tariffs.

On May 1, a news report said Tesla's board had contacted search firms about finding a successor to Musk. Tesla denied the report. Shares fell on the news.

Chapter 08

The falling-out

A week after Musk left the government, the relationship with Trump broke into the open. Musk had lobbied against parts of Trump's spending bill that would end tax credits for electric vehicles and home solar, and he publicly called the bill a "disgusting abomination." On June 5, 2025, the two traded attacks online, and Trump suggested ending government contracts with Musk's companies. Tesla shares fell 14 percent that day, erasing about $152 billion in market value, the largest one-day loss in the company's history, and leaving it at about $916 billion. The stock recovered about 5 percent the next day, and Fundstrat's Tom Lee called the sell-off overdone. Within a week, Musk said some of his posts about Trump had gone too far.

Chapter 09

The shareholders' answer

Tesla's board kept its bet on Musk. At the annual meeting in Austin on November 6, 2025, more than 75 percent of votes cast approved a new performance award worth up to nearly $1 trillion. It pays out only if Tesla reaches targets that include an $8.5 trillion market value and 20 million vehicles delivered.

The full-year numbers came in January. Tesla delivered 1,636,129 vehicles in 2025, about 9 percent fewer than in 2024 and its second straight annual decline. BYD sold more battery-electric cars than Tesla over the year for the first time.

Chapter 10

Where things stand in 2026

The picture in 2026 is mixed. In Europe, CNBC reported in February that Tesla's problems were getting worse, with BYD outselling it for several months running, including in the region's two largest EV markets. A Nordic reputation study published the same month ranked Tesla last among the companies it measured in Germany. Elsewhere the trend turned. Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in the second quarter of 2026, up 25 percent from a year earlier and its first year-over-year growth after two years of decline, helped in part by higher gasoline prices tied to the U.S. war with Iran. As October began, analysts' estimates for third-quarter deliveries ranged from about 422,000 to 482,000.

Four years after the sink, the measurable effects are on the record: billions in Tesla stock sold to buy Twitter, a protest movement aimed at Tesla stores, the steepest quarterly delivery drop in Tesla's history, and two single days that took 15 percent and 14 percent off its share price. What has not been settled is how much of Tesla's 2024 and 2025 decline came from Musk's public life and how much from competition. The surveys measure opinion rather than purchases, and the sales figures alone cannot separate the causes.