Tesla deliveries plummeted by a whopping 13% during the first quarter as its CEO Elon Musk faced public backlash over his work with President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency.
The pioneering electric vehicle company made 336,681 deliveries — which are viewed as an accurate proxy for sales — over the three-month period, far below Wall Street’s estimates and down from 386,810 during the same period one year ago.
Analysts had projected sales of more than 390,000, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Tesla shares initially fell as much as 6% in Wednesday trading and were hovering in negative territory after the announcement.
The stock is down about 30% since the start of the year.
The disappointing delivery report was a “disaster on every metric,” according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull.
“Musk needs to stop this political firestorm and balance being CEO of Tesla with DOGE,” Ives said in a note to clients. “The future is so bright but this is a full-blown crisis Tesla is navigating now and its primarily self-inflected.”
“We remain firmly bullish on the long-term Tesla story but Musk needs to get his act together or else unfortunately darker times are ahead for Tesla,” Ives added.
The vast majority of deliveries were for Tesla’s flagship Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover SUV, which amounted to 323,800. Other models, including the Cybertruck, accounted for just 12,881 deliveries.
“While the changeover of Model Y lines across all four of our factories led to the loss of several weeks of production in Q1, the ramp of the New Model Y continues to go well,” Tesla said in a release.
Tesla dealerships in the US and abroad have faced a string of vandalism and arson attacks in recent weeks in response to Musk’s ties to the Trump administration.
Musk unofficially leads DOGE, which has gutted several federal agencies while pursuing its mandate to eliminate government waste.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and others have asserted that the attacks are acts of domestic terrorism.
In addition, Tesla is battling fierce competition in the key growth market of China, where local rivals like BYD have rapidly gained ground.
Elsewhere, the number of Tesla trade-ins for other new or used vehicles at dealerships hit its “highest ever share” in March, according to a report from Edmunds.
Musk tried to reassure Tesla employees at an all-hands meeting last month, telling them to “hang on to your stock.”
During the meeting, Musk gave a presentation on Tesla’s long-term product roadmap, including long-promised fully autonomous driving software that he said would transform the value proposition of the company’s vehicles.
He also bashed vandals for targeting Tesla locations in response to his political maneuvers.
“I understand if you don’t want to buy our product, but you don’t have to burn it down,” Musk said. “That’s a bit unreasonable.”
