Elon Musk Dwells On Wokeness, Geopolitics, Population Crisis But Mostly Stays Silent On Tesla's Gloomy Q1 Deliveries

Since EV giant Tesla reported a year-on-year drop in deliveries for the first quarter on Tuesday, company CEO Elon Musk has commented on international politics, wokeness, the falling birth rate in the U.S., and more but not on the company’s disappointing delivery performance.

Tesla’s Disappointing Deliveries: Tesla on Tuesday reported an 8.5% year-on-year decline in first-quarter deliveries with 386,810 vehicles delivered across the world. The company produced 433,371 vehicles in the time frame.

This is the first time Tesla has reported a drop in quarterly deliveries in about four years since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Musk Reacts: The CEO, who is very active on social media platform X, has commented on various things since the delivery report. He expressed concerns about illegal immigrants being welcomed into America to boost democrat votes, proposed activist investor Nelson Peltz for the Disney board, expressed enthusiasm for the falling readership of legacy media websites, and even expressed alarm that American women are choosing not to have children.

The only reference he has made to Tesla’s poor deliveries, however, is when he slammed Tesla investor Ross Gerber as an “idiot” for blaming the company’s board of directors for the poor performance.

“He's such an idiot that he can't even tell he's an idiot,” Musk said. “BYD sales dropped by 42% from last quarter. This was a tough quarter for everyone.”

Rival Performance: BYD is Tesla’s key rival globally. The Chinese EV maker reported BEV sales of 300,114 units for the first quarter, marking a jump of 13.4% from a year ago but lower than Tesla’s delivery numbers. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, BEV sales slumped 43% from the 526,409 units it sold for the fourth quarter of 2023.

BYD took over Tesla as the world’s best-selling EV maker in the last quarter of 2023 only to return the crown a quarter later. However, Tesla is the only one among the two EV giants that reported both a year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter drop in sales.

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Read More: GM's Total EV Sales In Q1 Can't Even Match Tesla's High-End Deliveries

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