Here’s how many Teslas Elon Musk would have sold without the politics

New study puts numbers to the question everyone’s asking.

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(Mark Hulbert, an author and longtime investment columnist, is the founder of the Hulbert Financial Digest; his Hulbert Ratings audits investment newsletter returns.)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Callaway Climate Insights) — It’s no secret that Tesla’s business has suffered because of Elon Musk’s political activities. But we haven’t known the full extent of that suffering.

Until now. A new study finds that, but for Musk’s political activities, Tesla (TSLA) would have sold 1.26 million more electric vehicles between October 2022 and April of this year — 87% more than they actually sold. Furthermore, this so-called “Musk Partisan Effect” became steadily greater over this period. By the first quarter of 2025, the study’s authors found, Tesla’s sales would have been 150% higher but for that effect.

The study, titled “The Musk Partisan Effect on Tesla Sales,” recently began being distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Its authors, each at Yale University, are Kenneth Gillingham, a professor of Environmental and Energy Economics; Matthew Kotchen, a professor of economics; James Levinsohn, a professor of economics and management; and Barry Nalebuff, a professor of management.