Elon Musk brushes off fears of Tesla’s demand problem and denies declining sales — ‘they’re fine, don’t worry about it’

• The Tesla CEO asserts he’s seeing a major rebound in customer interest for his EVs despite persistent evidence to the contrary. “The stock wouldn’t be trading near all-time highs if things weren’t in good shape,” he said.

Tesla’s return to the elite club of trillion-dollar market cap stocks is all the evidence Elon Musk needs to convince him the worst of the blowback over his political activism is over.

Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk dismissed concerns over weak demand as a non-issue that journalists like Bloomberg interviewer Mishal Husain may fixate on but one that bullish investors were correct to ignore. 

Weeks after Tesla reported deliveries tumbled 13% in the first quarter over an already weak period the year prior, Musk claimed volumes have “already turned around”. Initially content to leave it at that, the Tesla CEO then justified his assertion after his curt, one-sentence answer failed to satisfy Husain.

“We’ve lost some sales perhaps on the left, but we’ve gained them on the right. The sales numbers at this point are strong and we see no problem with demand,” the Tesla CEO said. “The stock wouldn’t be trading near all-time highs if things weren’t in good shape, they’re fine, don’t worry about it.”  

Tesla stock is expected to open up Wednesday at around $345 a share, a significant rebound from recent lows around $214 but still substantially down from its December all-time high $488 share price.

Analysts have noted the stock’s valuation multiple of 120x consensus 2026 earnings is first and foremost an expression of confidence in its AI and robotics plans, rather than its shrinking car business. Market researcher DataTrek calls Tesla a “faith-based stock” as a result, since much of the premium priced in is based on immature products and services like its Optimus robot.

Tesla drops prediction of minimum 20% increase in EV sales

Going into this year, the Tesla CEO raised the bar on expectations on car sales considerably. 

In October 2024 he predicted the brand’s EV volumes would surge anywhere from 20% to 30% this year. Yet in January the company quietly dropped the goal entirely, anticipating only a “return to growth”. 

Musk nonetheless repeated his claims in a separate interview with CNBC’s Faber on Tuesday: “We’ve seen a major rebound in demand at this point.” 

Hi everyone. Here’s the current Tesla delivery outlook based on the data so far:

Q2 2025: Deliveries are expected to be between 350,000 and 395,000 units, down from 443,956 in Q2 2024. I’ll tweet my final estimate on June 30, two days before Tesla reports the official numbers.…

— Troy Teslike (@TroyTeslike) May 21, 2025

Barring the launch of any surprise new models the public has yet seen, evidence suggests Musk could be mistaken.

Weekly data indicates the second quarter remains on track for a 24% decline in China volumes, according to the latest figures. 

In Europe, the picture is even more grim. Key markets like Germany saw EV demand jump by more than half in April as more customers make the switch to zero-emission driving. Yet volumes of Teslas in the country plunged 46% over the previous year. 

Another sharp decline in Q2 deliveries likely

If one were to believe Musk, however, one might be convinced the exact opposite would be true.

The Tesla CEO maintained its cratering sales in the region were merely a reflection of a broader consumer malaise.

“That’s true of all manufacturers. There’s no exceptions. The European car market is quite weak,” he told Bloomberg’s Husain.

This disparity between rising EV sales and drops in Tesla’s suggests Tesla has a problem with demand because of Musk’s political activism. The Tesla CEO’s verbal assurances it does not prompted one manager to speak out recently, resulting in his termination.

Troy Teslike, a Patreon account whose predictions are often more accurate than most Wall Street analysts, on Wednesday issued his latest forecast for the brand after tracking Tesla’s real-time vehicle production data.

He believes the company is on track to sell anywhere between 350,000 to 395,000 vehicles in Q2, another sharp decline from the 444,000 delivered last year. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com