Musk’s MAGA Transformation Has Another of His Companies in the Dumps
Tesla is not the only Musk company struggling this year.
Evelyn Hockstein/REUTERS
Yet another Elon Musk company is having a rocky 2025.
Musk’s social media company X, formerly Twitter, revealed this week that it lost 10 million users in Europe since last summer—a 10.5 percent drop after he aligned himself with President Donald Trump and became a face of the MAGA movement.
X was required to provide the figures as part of the European Union’s Digital Services Act. The company did not disclose figures regarding its North American user base or any other global region.
Since last August, X has reported that its most significant exodus has come from France, with 2.7 million users exiting the platform, followed by Poland (1.8 million) and Germany (1.3 million). Lithuania and Luxembourg each lost a quarter of their total user base.
That bad news for the world’s richest man comes weeks after Tesla revealed it had a 71 percent drop in profit in the first quarter of 2025. Critics said the dip was an indictment of its CEO, Musk, who had focused his attention on uprooting much of the federal government this year, rather than growing the electric vehicle manufacturer.
Get the best of The Beast delivered right to your inbox
By clicking “SUBSCRIBE” you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Europeans are also partially to blame for Tesla’s struggles. Tesla sales declined by more than 50 percent across January and February on the continent this year. There have also been mass protests at dealerships against Musk’s right-wing politics in the U.S. and across Europe.
Musk, 53, will soon have more time to devote to X and Tesla, it appears. He revealed after Tesla’s poor earnings report that he will step back from his work with the Department of Government Efficiency sometime in May and return to his private sector work.
“Starting next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly,” Musk told Tesla investors, according to CNN. “There’s been some blowback for the time that I’ve been spending in government with DOGE. I think the work that we’re doing there is actually very important.”
See more of our coverage in your search results.
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.
Register below to read this article for free or subscribe
to unlock unlimited access to The Daily Beast.
Monthly
$1
First month then $5.99/month
Annual
$35
First year then $59.99/year
Premium
$79
First year then $119.99/year
*Substack access provided by the next business day, using your subscription email. Choosing the Premium plan constitutes your permission to share your subscription email with Substack and your agreement to Substack’s Privacy Policy.
Already have an account? Sign In
Looks like you already have a subscription!
You're all set!
Thanks for subscribing.