When you’re pitching a mass-market product, it doesn’t pay to alienate half your customers, even in what appear to be highly partisan times, according to a spicy new economics paper from Yale University researchers.
Shut up and drive the company if you care what’s good for business, Elon Musk, read the messages in the paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The academics carefully steered their way through the evidence and estimated Musk’s politically partisan and culturally warlike personae cost Tesla, the EV company he controls, the sale of 1 million to 1.26 million cars from October 2022 to April 2025.
Knowing full well they were accelerating straight into further culture and communication wars, the researchers led off their formula-heavy paper with a quote from Michael Jordan: “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” The all-time basketball great was a dedicated avoider of all things politics and culture, during periods when other sports and entertainment stars weighed in on voting rights, police violence and other issues of the day. Jordan would not bend to liberal-leaning politicians and entertainers asking him to join in — he wanted to sell Air Jordans to everybody.
Musk has been quieter in late 2025 than during the peak of his partisan forays, including gleefully leading Trump’s government-slashing efforts in the spring. But he continues to pick fights and bristle at all criticism, and draws renewed fire in the wealth-wars with his pursuit of a new $1 trillion — that’s right, trillion — pay package from Tesla. There are more than a few Teslas driving American roads, the paper notes, sporting the bumper sticker, “I bought this car before I knew Elon was crazy.”
His board of directors, if they have strong spines, might want to read the Yale paper and put it on the next agenda.
The researchers tried to filter out other factors from Tesla’s sales dropoff, such as inflation, declines in the overall EV market from loss of federal subsidies, and renewable energy criticism from the GOP. Tesla has also taken heat because its most popular models haven’t been updated much in a brutal car sales environment where “this year’s model” is still a thing.
The paper notes that other brands saw sales increase in the period they reviewed, while Tesla’s drove into a costly ditch. “Without the Musk partisan effect, Tesla vehicle sales between October 2022 and April 2025 would have been higher by an amount in the range of 67% and 83%, equivalent to between 1 and 1.26 million vehicles.”
Coloradans, who have been early adopters of EV technology compared to the rest of the nation, reflected the mood of left-leaning consumers elsewhere in regards to Tesla-shopping. The Sun noted in July that Colorado registrations for Tesla, which only sells fully electric vehicles, dropped nearly 13% in the second quarter of 2025 from a year earlier, and were down 7.8% year over the first six months.
Tesla famously dissolved its media relations department back in 2020, and responses to the press these days usually consist of Musk personally mocking journalists or other critics through X, the social media platform, previously known as Twitter, that he owns. E-mails sent to the address listed as Tesla’s press relations department received no response.
Among its other findings, the Yale economics paper found that other EV makers benefitted from Tesla’s decline.
“There are also spillover consequences of the Musk partisan effect to other markets and policies,” wrote lead author Kenneth Gillingham, senior associate dean of academic affairs at the Yale School of the Environment and a professor of economics. “We find a significant Musk-induced increase in the sales of other companies’ electric and hybrid vehicles, whereby the Musk partisan effect increased sales of these vehicles in the range of 17% to 22% since completing his purchase of Twitter.”
The paper tries not to gloat about this comeuppance, noting that robust Tesla sales are needed if U.S. states are serious about meeting their EV adoption and greenhouse gas reduction targets.
“The decrease in EV sales because of the Musk partisan effect also makes it harder for states to meet (zero emissions) targets, as we found for California, and for achieving long-run greenhouse-gas emissions reduction goals more generally. Our results underscore the large impact of Elon Musk’s partisan activities” on so many economic and policy areas, the authors say.
“While this is an extreme example of partisan activity on the part of an especially high-profile individual, the results clearly show the wisdom of Michael Jordan’s dictum.”
Colorado officials also need Musk and Tesla to succeed with consumers, no matter how much they revolt politically against Musk’s Trump-endorsing tilt. The end of a $7,500 federal EV subsidy on Sept. 30 raises the prices for many EV shoppers, and renewable energy advocates will need Musk and his Tesla engineers to put out new versions at lower sticker prices to keep the EV momentum going.
Even with the loss of disgusted progressive consumers, Tesla remains the No. 1 or No. 2 seller of EVs in many states, including Colorado. In the third quarter of 2025, Tesla’s two most popular models held a 20.6% share of Colorado fully electric sales, just behind the combined sales of Nissan’s Ariya and Leaf models at 21.1% of that market.