JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It has been a rough week for Elon Musk. Tesla, where he still serves as CEO, reported its largest ever drop in quarterly sales this week. Musk also pumped millions of dollars into a failed pro-Trump candidate in this week's Wisconsin state Supreme Court race. So what does all of this mean as the tech CEO turned presidential adviser grows his political influence? NPR's Stephen Fowler has been covering all of this. Hi, Stephen.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Hey there.
SUMMERS: So, Stephen, let's start with Tesla, if we can. Its EV sales are down. Its stock value has steadily dropped since the beginning of the year. So what's happening here?
FOWLER: Well, Tesla's role atop the electric vehicle market has seen a rocky road in the U.S. and internationally. There's competitors like China's BYD that are cutting into that dominance, too. The company was offering sales promotions like zero-interest financing and heavy discounts before announcing a 13% drop in first quarter sales. There have been protests at dealerships, reports of vandalisms of Tesla cars and Cybertrucks, and folks getting bumper stickers saying they bought one before Musk's embrace of hard-right politics. Investors have expressed concern that Musk has been a distractive driver, so to speak, of Tesla while he acts as the face of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency effort.
SUMMERS: And Musk is also really the face of Tesla. What has he had to say about the challenges that both he and the company have been facing?
FOWLER: Well, at a rally in Wisconsin, ahead of the state Supreme Court vote he was promoting, Musk said this DOGE work was something he believed in, even though it was costing him and his companies money.
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ELON MUSK: I'm not getting paid. Definitely not stealing money and would never get away with it - but the value of my Tesla stock is in half. So this is a very expensive job, is what I'm saying.
FOWLER: I mean, basically, he acknowledges, Juana, that his proximity to President Trump and his policies and being in charge of several high-profile companies is sometimes in conflict.
SUMMERS: OK. I want to talk a little bit more about what happened in Wisconsin this week. The conservative-backed candidate there lost by 10 points, and that's a state that Trump won in November. How involved was Elon Musk in that race?
FOWLER: Here's some numbers. Musk accounted for about 20 million of the 70 million spent in what was the most expensive state Supreme Court race in history. He gave million-dollar checks to voters acting as spokespeople and held a rally ahead of the vote. In a Fox News interview Tuesday, before polls closed, he warned that a victory for the Democratic-aligned candidate would have consequences for the whole country.
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MUSK: They're going to do everything possible to stop the agenda that the American people voted for when they voted for President Trump with the popular vote, with - and the House and the Senate, in November.
FOWLER: And after that defeat, Musk did post on the social media site he owns, X, that they expected to lose.
SUMMERS: Now, I know that there was also a Democratic overperformance in two Florida special elections on Tuesday. Though Republicans, I'll note, did hold onto those seats. Did Musk play a factor there?
FOWLER: Well, Democrats have been doing better than expected in special elections during the Trump era, and Tuesday was no different even when they don't actually flip seats. There's a lot of money pouring in. There's lower turnout with more engaged voters, and now there is a lot of displeasure with Musk and DOGE and Trump's policies his first months back in office.
Here's a case in point. I went to a, quote, "fighting oligarchy" rally put on by Senator Bernie Sanders in Arizona a few weeks ago, talking to voters, and Sanders told me people are clicking more with his longtime message that rails against the influence of billionaires in politics because of Musk and what he's doing and how he encapsulates that.
SUMMERS: Stephen, let's end with this. With trouble on the political front for Musk as well as on the business front, where does Elon Musk go from here?
FOWLER: Well, he's a special government employee, meaning he's not supposed to work more than 130 days in a year. He says he's worked nonstop since January 20. On Air Force One Thursday, Trump said Musk should stay, quote, "as long as he'd like" but also added Elon would probably want to get back to his businesses...
SUMMERS: Yeah.
FOWLER: ...In the next few months. Conveniently would line up with that 130-day timeline at the end of May.
SUMMERS: NPR's Stephen Fowler in Atlanta, thank you.
FOWLER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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