A former Tesla manager is speaking out, saying Tesla could be close to failing, and he says it’s Elon Musk’s fault.
He believes Musk’s actions have pushed customers away.
Matthew Labrot, who spent five years at Tesla and still drives one of its vehicles, gave a blunt assessment in a recent interview with Hard Reset Substack.
After founding a group called Tesla Employees Against Elon, Labrot said he was fired just days later. Now he’s going public.
“Let’s be clear: we are not the problem. Our products are not the problem. Our engineering, service, and delivery teams are not the problem. The problem is demand. The problem is Elon,” Labrot wrote in an anonymous letter to Tesla employees before his termination.
Labrot says Musk’s increasingly controversial political activity has turned off many of Tesla’s once-loyal customers.
“We noticed customers, return customers, shying away from us a little bit,” he said.
“And that’s when I started to see the things he was putting on Twitter and the political views he started to have.”
Labrot added, “The people that he was choosing to support were the exact people we had been fighting against while trying to accelerate sustainable energy.”
Sales Plummet as Musk Doubles Down
Recent sales data appears to back up Labrot’s concerns.
In Europe, Tesla’s sales fell by 49% year over year in April, according to CNBC, even as the overall electric vehicle market grew by more than 34%.
Globally, Tesla saw a 13% drop in sales during the first quarter of 2025 compared to the previous year, according to Yahoo Finance.
Labrot says unless Musk steps away from Tesla entirely, the damage to the brand may be irreversible.
“I don’t think that there’s anything he can do to change the people’s opinion that have decided they’re not going to support Tesla outside of him leaving,” he said.
“I think for Tesla, as far as vehicle sales go, it’s game over.”
Fewer EVs on the Road Could Hurt the Planet
In 2024, Tesla’s Model Y became the best-selling vehicle in the world, beating out even the Toyota Corolla.
If Tesla continues to fall, buyers may be pushed toward gas-powered cars instead of electric ones, which could slow the shift to clean energy.
While Tesla struggles, the electric vehicle market overall is still growing rapidly, and buyers now have more options than ever.
But Labrot doesn’t see a good future for Tesla as long as Musk is in charge.
“It’s time to say the quiet part out loud,” he wrote. “It’s game over.”
IMAGE CREDIT: “Elon Musk” by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Image adjusted for layout.