Bulwark Takes - Europe Abandons Elon Musk, Tesla Sales Plummet

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Tesla sales have plummeted in Europe, so JVL and Ben Parker bask in the joy that is a sad Elon Musk.

Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with Ben Parker from The Bulwark, and we got we got sad Elon. Sad Elon news. Things are so hard. Who knew they could be this hard? Our continuing update in the sad life of Elon Musk. It's delicious. It's absolutely delicious. And that's why you should subscribe. Hit like, follow the feed. Stay with us as we chart the progress of the richest man to ever live. Ben, today we get word from Semaphore that Tesla sales in Europe are down.

Why is that, would you like to guess how many percentage fewer Teslas? Here, I'll, you know what, I'll just spit out a country and you tell me what decline they saw year over year. You want me to guess? Yeah. Or do you want me to pull it? Okay, yeah. No, Spain. Ooh, let's see uh 10 less 36 less germany oh this has got to be like 50 less 46 okay belgium i'm guessing similar, 43%. 55%. France, 59%. The United Kingdom, minus 62%. Denmark, minus 67%.

The Netherlands, minus 74%. Sweden, an 81% decline. 81%? 81% decline. And again, remember, this is happening as more electric cars are being sold. So people are just saying, yeah, I'll take one of them electric cars. Which one? Anyone but a Tesla, please.

I don't want that. Here's the best part. Yeah, please, please. Tesla in 2021 opened a gigafactory. Giggity, giggity, giggity. In Germany. Oh, in Germany? Yeah, in Germany.

Deutschland. Auf Deutschland. Capable of building 375,000 cars per year. Are you ready for how the news report frames this? The facility is likely to be underutilized for some time. No. No kidding. You know, at least he's still selling

so many more cars in America, right? Because that's the big economy, right? And he's really just killing it in America. Not doing so great in America either. Sales also down in America. China? China? He's selling a lot of cars in China?

Remind me, do they make a lot of EVs in China? They make a lot of EVs in China. They don't really like the Teslas there very much. Maybe he can build his Optimus robots in the German factory. Because, you know, any day, any day, the Optimus robots will be just flying off the shelves as everybody... He promised that on their earnings call. You know, the future is really...

Our future is Optimus with the robots. The humanoid robots. That's the future. Then it gets better. Did you see last week When Elon sat down with

Jonathan Swan In the Roosevelt room You know I don't smoke but I feel like I'm going to need a cigarette Wait sorry In the Roosevelt room? In the White House That's where he sat for his exit interview. Is that like when you're co-president?

Is that like your Oval Office? Like you get the Roosevelt Room as your second in command? Yeah, okay. So Elon feels as though maybe he's not co-president anymore. Now he is limping off to go back to run his many companies. And Jonathan Swan asked him, so are you going to meet your pledge? So Jonathan Swan says to him,

so you know, back in October at Madison Square Garden, you came out, you jumped around and you showed your little soft belly and you promised America that you were going to cut $2 trillion, at least. He said, at least. At least. At least $2 trillion from the federal budget.

Have you done that? Elon says, no, no, no, no, no. Jonathan Swan says, are you going to be able to get to $1 trillion? And here, Ben, I want to read you Elon's response. Oh, I can't wait. I think it's possible to do that, but it's a long road to go. And, you know, it's really difficult. It's sort of how much pain is, you know, are the cabinet and is Congress willing to take?

Because it can be done, but it requires dealing with a lot of complaints. It requires dealing with a lot of complaints? It can be done, but it requires dealing with a lot of complaints. So, uh... Now, I want to say that Musk claims it's not a case...

It's like, you know, oh, he was this close to making it to his goal. He was this close to $1 trillion. Actually, Musk claims only one hundred sixty billion dollars worth of savings. Which sounds like still, I guess, kind of impressive. Right. One hundred sixty billion dollars and and a five will get you a cup of coffee. I mean, it's a dozen eggs of half of his goal right well the problem is that they they uh they have a wall of receipts where they itemize the savings and they can only itemize 58 billion

so we've gone from just in case you guys are keeping track at home, we're going to do at least, at least $2 trillion down to, well, we got $160 billion down to, well, we can show you $58 billion. And even the $58 billion, it turns out, is wildly inflated by including outright errors and, as the New York Times reports, guesses about the future. And here I will switch from my bad Elon to my bad Nigel Tuftal. So not really savings then at all, is it? Is it right? At this point, I raise a practical question. Will we be playing Stonehenge tonight? JV, I'm taking notes for the next time I send you

an expense report. I spent $400. Here are receipts for our $150, and the rest is projections about the future. Projections about the future. Reimburse me for that, please. But we got to get... So, it gets better. Except... When then asked about, you know, so did this Doge thing really work?

Elon says, Doge is a way of life, like Buddhism. The real Doge, Ben, is the friends we made along the way. I'm not an expert on Buddhism, but I do not believe it involves dealing with a lot of complaints. Somehow that seems I would have gotten to Nirvana if it weren't for dealing with all the complaints. So, Benjamin, I said the real doge was the friends we made along the way. Like big balls. It turns out for Elon, that might be literally true. Because towards the end of this New York Times piece, Jonathan Swan relates that Elon just started opening up to him about his relationship with Donald Trump. And it feels like maybe to Elon, Trump was the friend he never had.

Right? I mean, like David Sachs isn't really a friend. David Sachs is like a toady who just like stands around and he's like the Peter Lorre character in all those 30s movies, right? Oh no, the part that surprised me wasn't the friend he never had. That doesn't surprise me at all. The part that surprised me wasn't the friend he never had. That doesn't surprise me at all. The part that surprised me was...

Trump? You're going to make one friend and it's him? Him? I read to you from Jonathan Swan, I guess we're good friends and we'll be on Air Force One and we'll meet one. And he's like, hey, do you want to stay over? And I'm like, sure.

Do you want to have a sleepover tonight? We'll stay up and do each other's hair plugs. Mr. Musk ended up spending the night in the Lincoln bedroom on several occasions. During one of those sleepovers, Mr. Musk said, Mr. Trump called him late at night to tell him to make sure to get some ice cream from the kitchen. The billionaire said he helped himself to a whole container of caramel Haagen-Dazs. I was like, this stuff's amazing he said i just want to say all the respect in the world to jonathan swan for calling it a sleepover exactly what it is that is exactly the right word and and you know what

credit to the editors looked at that and went yep yep it's a sleepover the president is having sleepovers with his friend they don't even have to ask their moms. The thing is, though, I don't think Trump views Elon as a friend. That's what makes us ultimately sad. So he said this was ultimately a tale about sad Elon. And I think it's because Elon is this mega maniacal Nazi adjacent guy who has more money than any any human has ever had. And yet he kind of looks like he wants a friend. And he finally gets one guy that he thinks is his friend. And I mean, I'm sorry. Donald Trump thinks this guy's a freak. Right?

Yep, definitely. I mean, Donald Trump has his own things, but he's not a weirdo. And he looks at Elon And just laughs at him behind his back I find that so funny I can only imagine the scene where Elon Asks Trump if he wants him to teach him How to play League of Legends

Trump goes Oh, is that one of your games? Is that one of your games, Elon? No, we don't like it. We don't like it. It's not strong. Powerful people don't play the games. That's the worst joke I've ever done. Yeah, just don't bring the kid.

Leave the kid at home for once. The whole thing is amazing. And you know what? I'm sorry. While we're taping here, to complete the sad Elon, I'm just going to head over to my stock tracker and look at Tesla to see what Tesla's one year stock... Oh! Is it up?

Is it way up? It's... Diamond hands to the moon? It's not up. The Tesla stock price is not up. It's about flat then, right? Because they make so many good cars. I'm not going to lie, it's down. It's down year to date. A third. A third just since January 1. came into government and he finally got a friend and the friend hates him and he's been kicked out of government and he lost a third of his money. If you lose a third of your money every quarter,

how many quarters can you last? Well, the good news is you never go all the way to zero. That's math. It's inevitable. It's physics. If you say so. Guys, we're going to do more of this because this is the only thing, honestly, the only thing to give us happiness and joy. It's watching bad things happen to bad people. That's what I'm going to do right here on this channel All the live long day Hit like, hit subscribe, follow us

Come along for the ride Good luck America