Tesla‘s CEO Elon Musk criticized on Thursday a Reuters report of European sales in August, in which the outlet says in the headline that Chinese carmaker BYD outsold the US brand in the EU.
Musk wrote on X that “Reuters misleads constantly,”
Replying to a post that noted that the figures reported by the media outlet only showed EU figures and not all European markets.
Sales numbers for August were released on Thursday by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), which compiles sales data from the EU alone, as well as from the EU including the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries — Nordic markets, such as Norway — and the UK.
According to ACEA, Tesla sold 8,220 vehicles in the EU last month, down 36.6% year over year.
Registrations year to date reach 85,673 units — which is 42.9% below January through August 2024.
Markets include Germany, France, and the Netherlands, among others, in which Tesla has been registering lower volumes since the beginning of the year.
BYD, on the other hand, saw its monthly sales triple year over year to 9,130 units, in a total of 67,632 vehicles sold since January 1 in the region.
Including the EFTA countries and the UK, Tesla registered 14,831 sales in August, staying ahead of BYD, which recorded 11,455 units. The overall growth and decline trends compared to 2024 remain unchanged for the two brands.
Year-to-date, the US EV maker has sold 133,850 vehicles across Europe, while the Chinese automaker has reached 95,940 units.
Besides competitive pricing, another thing to consider regarding BYD‘s growth in the continent is that it produces both hybrid and fully electric vehicles, while Tesla is a pure EV maker.
Elon Musk has long been outspoken about legacy media, often criticizing its coverage of politics, the auto industry, and his own businesses.
In 2018, he wrote via X that “Reuters is relentlessly negative about Tesla. They just wrote a bogus article saying S production last week was low by 800 cars.”
According to the chief executive, “S/X annual prod is set at ~100k, ie 1,900/week. Tesla built 1,913 S/X cars at our standard ~50/50 split last week, which is right on target.”
“Reuters, why did you mislead the people public about this number?,” he questioned then.
Musk also criticized established media outlets several times this year, while promoting X as a news platform.
“Reuters is lying. They are second only to AP (Associated Propaganda) as legacy news liars,” he wrote in February, reacting to a news report about his company Space X’s Starlink service.
By then, Musk also made several posts saying that “Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for ‘large scale social deception’.”
“Reuters received far more money than this from US government organizations, but via various subsidiaries and intermediaries to hide how they were getting it,” he wrote, adding that it “is just what DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) has found so far.”
Earlier this year, as he was serving the Trump Administration at DOGE, he said that “legacy media propaganda” was responsible for increasing public criticism of both him and Tesla since he entered politics.
“Well, I mean, unfortunately, what I’ve learned is that legacy media propaganda is very effective at making people believe things that aren’t true,” Musk said on CNBC.
He argued that critics engaged in “character assassination.”
Combined with intensifying competition from South Korean and Chinese brands, the transition to the refreshed Model Y and Musk’s involvement in politics were seen as key reasons for the brand’s sales slump in Europe since early 2025.
Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that ten customers sued the brand in France due to Elon Musk’s political activity, saying that the CEO turned the vehicles into “far-right totems.”
