Trump drops Elon Musk bombshell as Tesla fights for survival

US President Donald Trump has made a huge call on Elon Musk’s future within his administration.

The dramatic slide in Tesla’s share price has been arrested by news Elon Musk’s departure from his role within US President Donald Trump’s administration is imminent.

Politico reported this week Trump had told his inner circle Musk would take on a more advisory role for the government so he could return to his business interests in coming weeks.

Musk was heading Trumps’ Department of Government Efficiency and tasked with slashing costs and jobs within the public service sector.

While Trump has been pleased with Musk’s DOGE work, public sentiment towards Musk’s Tesla brand has been flailing both in the US and abroad.

Sales have been plummeting, protests have dogged Tesla’s offices and violent shootings and firebombings at Tesla dealerships have destroyed confidence in the brand.

MORE:76pc drop: Major nation abandons Tesla

Elon Musk is set to step back from his role within US President Donald Trump’s administration. Picture: AFP

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Amid all the unrest Tesla’s share price has also been in free fall, dropping to a low of USD $222.15 on March 10 – a more than 50 per cent fall from December 17’s high of USD $478.86 when Musk’s appointment within the Trump Administration was fresh and investors believed it could only boost Tesla’s value.

Ironically, Tesla’s share price revival to USD $283.26 this week was the result of news Musk would be shelving his work with Trump.

Musk took to his social media platform, X, to comment on the reports. He labelled the Politico report “fake news” and supported claims his departure had always been planned.

Yeah, fake news https://t.co/nPhTpZj3Fc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2025

Last month in an interview with Fox Business, Musk looked on the verge of tears when he was asked how he was managing his other businesses including Tesla and Space X as well as his government role within the Trump Administration.

If Musk does return to Tesla in more of a full-time capacity he has a big task ahead to restore consumer confidence and lift a growing sales slump in the face of huge competition from EV brands coming out of China.

MORE:‘Level of violence is insane’: Musk’s horror

Tesla’s share price rebounded off the back of the news about Musk.

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Tesla’s first quarter global deliveries report released on Wednesday painted a grim picture for the automaker, with just 336,681 cars delivered between January and March – well short of the estimated 390,342.

The result makes it Tesla’s worst quarter for deliveries since the second quarter of 2022, Bloomberg reports.

While Tesla officials moved to blame the poor performance on shifting production lines to the new Model Y, growing unrest across the world can’t be dismissed.

“While the changeover of Model Y lines across all four of our factories led to the loss of several weeks of production in Q1, the ramp of the New Model Y continues to go well,” Tesla said in a statement.

The Model Y has undergone a reworking five years after it was first released and sales of the car are unlikely to bounce back quickly, as it will take time for the factory to ramp up production again.

A Tesla car dealership vandalised in Berlin is just one of many across the globe. Picture: Getty Images

The quarterly report follows news Tesla was slipping in virtually all major markets.

Sales of the EV giant have plummeted in Germany – Europe’s biggest economy and the world’s third largest – by 76 per cent to just 1429 cars in February, according to statistics from the German Federal Motor Authority.

Next door in France, Europe’s second biggest economy and the world’s seventh largest, sales are down 44 per cent.

Germany and France are the largest EV markets in the European Union.

Tesla’s recent woes in Europe have been mirrored here in Australia, where sales fell 70 per cent in February amid softening EV sales and heightened competition from China.