The honest half is very real and shouldn't be minimised: Tesla's brand took a genuine hit in 2025. European sales plunged sharply — down roughly 49% year-on-year in some months — brand-favourability surveys fell, "Tesla Takedown" protests and showroom vandalism spread, and US deliveries slipped. It is fair to say Musk's polarising politics repelled a slice of Tesla's traditionally progressive buyer base, and that is a self-inflicted wound. But "destroyed Tesla" overstates it, because the sales dip has several causes beyond politics: the best-selling Model Y went through a global changeover that left a production gap, the lineup aged against a wave of new EV competition (BYD especially), price cuts pulled demand forward, and EV subsidies shifted. Tesla remained profitable, kept the largest US EV market share, and its stock recovered later in 2025 as attention turned to robotaxi and energy. So the fair verdict is mixed: the political brand damage is real and worth conceding — but a company still building ~1.6 million cars a year and leading autonomy and grid storage has not been "destroyed."