Tesla’s woes have deepened as latest production and deliveries figures showed a greater fall than expected.
A total of 384,122 Teslas were delivered from April to June this year, a 13.5% drop on the same period last year and the second quarter of slumping output.
Wall Street analysts had expected Tesla to report about 1,000 more deliveries.
It’s bad news for Tesla chief executive Elon Musk in a week of attacks from President Donald Trump on him personally, as well as his companies.
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Mr Musk found himself on the wrong side of Mr Trump and the majority of US congresspeople in his opposition to the so-called big beautiful bill approved by the US Senate.
His criticism of the inevitable debt rises the bill will result in led Mr Trump threatening to end subsidies for Mr Musk’s numerous businesses and to deport him.
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His role as founder and chief executive of numerous businesses has made him the world’s richest man, according to Forbes.
As well as Tesla, Mr Musk founded space technology company SpaceX and neurotechnology company Starlink. He also acquired the social media company Twitter, which he rebranded X.
It was the poor performance of Tesla that pushed him out of full-time politics and back to the Tesla offices.
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After months of share price tumbles and protests at Tesla showrooms, sales drops and car defacings, Musk left his work with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Not everyone viewed the figures as negative.
Analysts at financial services firm Wedbush said: “Tesla’s future is in many ways the brightest it’s ever been in our view given autonomous, FSD [full self-driving], robotics, and many other technology innovations now on the horizon with 90% of the valuation being driven by autonomous and robotics over the coming years but Musk needs to focus on driving Tesla and not putting his political views first.”
After a 5% share price fall earlier this week when Mr Musk strayed back into political matters, Tesla stock rose 4.5% on Wednesday.
The latest financial details for Tesla will be published later this month.
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In the first three months of the year, Tesla’s profits fell by 71% to $409m (£306.77m) from $1.39bn (£1.04bn). Revenues were also well below forecasts, dropping 9% to $19.3bn (£14.5bn).
