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It has been a rough year for Tesla

Since reaching an all-time high in December on the back of the euphoria felt when President Donald Trump won the 2024 election and named Tesla CEO Elon Musk head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which is tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse from the government, Tesla (TSLA) shares have plummeted.

The stock is down 42% from its five-month high, and much of that decline can be attributed to the political backlash from Musk’s trip to Washington.

Tesla’s foothold in Europe was the first domino to fall. Sales in the region dropped 49% during the first two months of the year as Musk flirted with far right-wing politics in a region that mostly (but not uniformly) leans to the left.

Despite selling more vehicles, the company’s market share in the region shrunk to 1.1%.

However, European sales are a relatively small drop in the bucket for Tesla. The real concerning news of the quarter came when the company announced that overall first-quarter sales dropped 13% year over year, representing the largest decline in company history.

But it’s not just Musk working against Tesla. The competition in the EV space has undoubtedly become more intense, and while Tesla is by far the market leader in the U.S., with over 48% (as of Q3 2024), that number was 80% in 2019

It’s about as strong a foothold as an American car company can have in China.

Sales in 2024 jumped 8.8% in China to a record of 657,000 vehicles delivered. But even here the company saw some slippage as its market share for battery-only EVs fell to 10.4% from 11.7%.

This is thanks to the dominance of domestic stalwart BYD, which has a 32% new energy vehicle market share in the country.

Now, it’s becoming harder for Tesla to maintain its shrinking footprint.