After entering 2025, Tesla's market performance in Europe took a sharp turn. Anti-Musk slogans from the British group "Everybody Hates Elon" are spreading on the streets of London. The organization launched a large number of boycott advertisements in London bus stations and subway stations against Tesla founder and billionaire Elon Musk (Elon Musk). The slogans included mocking Tesla's plummeting stock price, "The black fans won't sell? Just ask Tesla."
Tesla’s sales in Europe have indeed fallen sharply since the beginning of this year.
Why do Europeans hate Musk so much?
Zhao Yongsheng, director of the French Economic Research Center at the University of International Business and Economics and a doctoral supervisor at the Sorbonne University in Paris, who conducted research in Europe earlier this year, told China Business News: "Whether it is Musk's intervention, US Vice President Vance's remarks at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, or Trump's actions, Europeans are disgusted. Europe advocates order and rules, but after Trump came to power, the United States no longer follows the international framework established by the Yalta Conference after World War II. This disregard for established borders makes Europeans extremely worried."
After entering 2025, Tesla's market performance in Europe took a sharp turn.
In Germany, Europe's largest electric vehicle market, data from the German Automobile Industry Association showed that Tesla's sales plunged another 76% year-on-year in February after plummeting 60% in January. According to data from the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Board, the number of Tesla registrations in the country fell by 44.4% in the first two months of this year, and fell by half in February. In addition, Tesla sales fell by 24% in the Netherlands, 42% in Sweden, 48% in both Norway and Denmark, 45% in France, 55% in Italy, 10% in Spain, and 53% in Portugal.
The slump in European sales coincided with a drop in Tesla's stock price. Tesla’s stock price has fallen more than 34% so far this year, erasing all gains since the election in November last year.
In January this year, he called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer an "evil tyrant who should be jailed." Before Germany's parliamentary elections in February, he publicly supported the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, saying that "only the AfD can save Germany" and called on voters to transcend "focus on past guilt."
Gu Xuewu, a tenured professor of political science and international relations at the University of Bonn in Germany and director of the Global Research Center, told China Business News that Musk not only supports anti-establishment forces in the United States, but also supports far-right forces in Europe, promoting the expansion of anti-establishment ideas to the world. Gu Xuewu said that Musk supported Germany's far-right party AFD through X and conducted a global live broadcast of its party congress, which has shown its strong influence. "Musk's success has made many people admire and trust him, especially for those who do not have a clear political stance. Musk's support has great appeal. If he said that only the AfD can save Germany, many voters may think: Since Musk said so, why should we oppose it?" he said.
Gu Xuewu analyzed that the anti-establishment forces in the United States have achieved significant victory, and this force is likely to expand into a global movement. The next target of the anti-establishment forces represented by Musk is the major European capitals. "The goal of this movement is to promote their governance concepts, redefine the relationship between the country and the people, and promote the globalization of extreme anti-establishment ideas. This globalization process has already begun, and with the rapid spread of big data, artificial intelligence, and social media, this force is likely to expand rapidly." Gu Xuewu said.
Andrew Chadwick, a professor of political communication at Loughborough University in the UK, said that Musk used X’s behavior to be “a bit like an old-style newspaper tycoon” to promote his political views. "We're seeing Musk start to align more clearly with the international far-right movement. If you look at the kind of people that Musk himself promotes on his platform, he increasingly starts to assemble a diverse group of right-wing influencers, many of whom have large followings, and use their evidence as the basis for his intervention in European politics," Chadwick said.
However, the intervention caused Musk's reputation to plummet in Germany. According to the latest survey of 100,000 Germans released this month by the German portal T-Online, 94% of the respondents said they would not buy Tesla, and only 3% were willing to consider it.
Activists have also taken advantage of the situation. The "Everybody Hates Elon" organization distributed posters calling on car owners to abandon Tesla and cancel their X accounts. An activist group in Strasbourg, France, also distributed stickers warning Musk to "stay away from the EU." A Tesla car was set on fire in a parking lot in southern France, and local prosecutors said it was "no accident."
Europeans' dissatisfaction with Musk is not an isolated phenomenon. The words and deeds of US Vice President Vance (JD Vance) and Trump also caused disgust. For example, Vance said at the Munich Security Conference that European politicians failed to listen to the voices of voters, and he criticized the "firewall" set up by Germany's major political parties against far-right parties.
German politicians were furious at Vance's intervention. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius made temporary changes to his speech immediately afterwards, stating that Vance's intervention was "unacceptable." French President Emmanuel Macron has also warned of the risks posed by unchecked power in the hands of tech billionaires and the destabilizing impact they could have on democratic institutions.
Zhao Yongsheng said that Vance's remarks at the Munich Security Conference that were seen as belittling European security concerns, and Trump's move to exclude the EU and Ukraine during talks between Saudi Arabia and Russia, have deepened people's impression of the United States' arrogance. "Trump has also proposed turning Canada into the 51st state of the United States, and even expressed similar intentions for the Gulf of Mexico and Greenland, further stoking Europe's fear of the United States being unchecked."
Europe's susceptibility to such behavior stems from its history of war and reconstruction. Zhao Yongsheng said that Europeans who have experienced a long war are extremely disgusted with Trump and Vance's remarks, which are incompatible with their world view.
"European think tank scholars, politicians and policymakers are obviously disappointed with the United States. They once thought that although the United States focused on its own interests, it was always of the same mind as Europe, but Trump completely overturned this position. This change occurred for the first time after World War II. The United States no longer acted based on common values. Trump's approach completely deviated from the traditional international order, making Europeans deeply uneasy." Zhao Yongsheng said.
Zhao Yongsheng also said: "Macron has quickly convened an emergency meeting in Paris to discuss how to deal with the situation without US support. Although the process of European independence is slow, these events may accelerate unity."