Tesla Stock Rattled as Insiders Dump Shares. What’s Going On?EV maker’s sales in Europe have made a sharp U-turn this year with some regions selling half the volumes from a year ago. Is Musk’s political ambition causing car buyers to look elsewhere for electric wheels?
Tesla stock TSLA is off to a bumpy start of the year with 10% shaved off its market valuation since the first trading bell of 2025. It’s all likely tied to Elon Musk’s shifting focus from his electric-car giant and into US politics (and, some would say, beyond that and into European affairs).
To make matters worse, key insiders and directors dumped tons of shares this month, cashing out cold hard dollars. Elon Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, who’s a Tesla board member, together with two other key figures, Robyn Denholm and chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja, sold roughly 200,000 shares.
Kimbal Musk offloaded 75,000 shares worth $27.6 million on February 6. Before that, on February 3, Denholm sold 112,390 shares worth more than $43 million. On the same day, Taneja parted ways with 7,000 shares worth $2.8 million.
The share sale is happening at a time when it’s getting increasingly difficult for Tesla to keep its brand equity out of Elon Musk’s public image. In January, Musk was making headline after headline on the politics pages of big media outlets.
His efforts to reshape the White House administration spilled over into interfering with UK politics (where he attacked UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his alleged involvement with “mass rapes in exchange for votes” ).
The Tesla CEO also hosted a discussion on X with Germany’s far-right candidate Alice Weidel. It happened about a month before Germany’s federal election on February 23. The live event pulled in roughly 100,000 streamers and sparked a debate over whether it was right to give a free platform to a far-right political party of a foreign country. There’s also Musk’s gesture likened to a Nazi salute he pulled off at Trump’s inauguration — that one really turned heads globally.
Enough politics, let’s dive into the numbers.
Tesla sales were shockingly bad in January. All around Europe, car buyers opted for cheaper Chinese alternatives in a sea of looming competition in the auto industry .
In the UK, sales dipped about 8% from last year’s January. Chinese EV maker BYD BYD saw a massive jump by 550% to 1,614 cars sold. In Germany, sales of Tesla vehicles dropped 60%, while BYD sales rose 69%. France logged a 63% decline in sales of Tesla while Spain saw the steepest drop of 75%. Norway registered a 38% drop in Tesla sales while Tesla’s market in Sweden shrunk 44%. In China, where Tesla commands a towering presence, sales were down 11.5% in the first month of 2025.
Moving outside Europe and across the Atlantic — California marked a decline in Tesla sales to the tune of 11.6%. It was the only carmaker with tumbling sales in the state.
"All of the decrease in the state market last year was attributable to Tesla, which had an 11.6 percent decline," the California New Car Dealers Association said. "Registrations for all other brands increased 1.4 percent."
By the looks of it, Tesla isn’t in a good place fundamentally and shares are down 28% from their record high in December. It’s also coming from a pretty battering fourth quarter where profits plunged 71% while sales barely made it above the flatline with a 2% growth year over year.
Do you believe Tesla’s fortunes are tied to Elon Musk’s ventures into politics? And if you had to choose, are you long or short Tesla? Share your thoughts below!
