California
As Tesla CEO Elon Musk continues to bash California and stump for Trump, West Coasters are getting revenge
The battery that once powered a great love between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and California car buyers is slowly fading away.
New registrations of the Tesla Model Y in the Golden State have tumbled for a full year, with its market share dropping 8.5% compared to last year, according to Experian Automotive data. The California New Car Dealers Association third quarter outlook report published on Friday reveals the electric vehicle maker’s dominance in the country’s largest market for battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) has continued to erode. Among the top three passenger cars sold in California, the Tesla Model 3 has fallen to third place, behind the Honda Civic and the Toyota Camry, potentially opening the door for a full-throttle free-for-all among automotive brands.
Overall, Tesla’s brand share fell from from 13.6% to 12.1%, year-to-date. Being outsold by non-luxury brands such as Honda and Camry is a blinking-red signal shift in the overall competitive landscape. The Model 3 catapulted Tesla onto the main stage as a mass-market brand, but it now faces new cast of rivals including Cadillac, Lexus, Hyundai, and BMW, all of which made major gains in the past year. Cadillac, for instance, clocked a 315.2% increase in BEV registrations, while Tesla sunk from 63% to 54.5%.
There may also be rising tension in the market due to California’s strong Democratic-leaning population, which is more likely to buy an EV, and Musk’s support for Trump. The CNCDA outlook report, which tracks trends in California’s new vehicle market, comes as the electric vehicle CEO has continually praised Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump. The share of registered Democrats in California has risen to 45.3% since 2020, while Republican registration has remained flat at about 23.9%, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Meanwhile, a 2020 study found U.S. democrats are significantly more willing to adopt EVs than Republicans. And California’s share of the BEV market year-to-date is 22.2%, compared to an overall U.S. market share of 7.9%, CNCDA reported.
Plus, Musk hasn’t been kind to California. He publicly pledged to move SpaceX, and X out of the state and into Texas this year. The “final straw” came after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act, aimed at prohibiting the forced outing policies of students in schools. Musk said it was tantamount to an attack on families and companies.
It might not hurt that Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is a California native. The Vice President lives in Washington, D.C., but she and husband Doug Emhoff own a $5 million mansion in Brentwood, Calif.
Brian Maas, president of the CNCDA, told Fortune there are likely several factors underlying the trend.
“We believe the slip for Tesla could be happening for a number of reasons, starting with market saturation,” said Maas in a statement. “Californians who wanted and could afford Teslas have mostly already done so.”
Plus, Tesla hasn’t rolled out new accessible models, apart from the “very niche and expensive Cybertruck,” he added. There are also now more options from traditional car manufacturers. “And this is all before we bring into the conversation Musk’s political views and comments, which don’t align with many Californians,’ particularly his initial customer base of Bay Area drivers,” said Maas.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
Why is Tesla stock surging?
Still, Tesla has been on a tear this week, rising 22%, after a blockbuster earnings call and report fueled its strongest performance since 2013. Part of that was due to Tesla’s report that its $80,000 apiece Cybertruck turned a profit for the first time. The rally sent Musk’s personal wealth soaring another $34 billion, pushing his net worth to $270.3 billion in a single day.
And Musk has hinted that Tesla has more innovations in store. This month, Tesla announced a self-driving robotaxi, called a Cybercab, and a fully autonomous Robovan with enough space for a family. On Wednesday, Musk confirmed the robotaxi has been making maiden voyages under the auspices of Tesla employees on the streets of San Francisco. The world’s-richest-man said during the earnings call that other car companies will find themselves in jeopardy if they don’t focus on autonomy, as Tesla has.
“A lot of automotive companies or most automotive companies have not internalized this, which is surprising, because we’ve been shouting this from the rooftops for such a long time, and it will accrue to their detriment in the future,” said Musk.
To be sure, the Tesla Model Y is still the top-selling car in California year-to-date, CNCDA reported. And, Tesla is California’s second-best-selling brand after Toyota. Furthermore, the Model Y competes in the red-hot SUV/crossover segment, which dominates the market. The Model 3 competes in the shrinking passenger car segment, where sales dropped 13.1%, while SUVs rose 3.4%. The Model Y sells nearly three times the volume of the Model 3.
It remains to be seen whether that future could be at risk due to Musk’s political affiliations. His strong political stance has gone against the grain compared to other high-profile CEOs. A rep for JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, for instance, issued a denial this month that Dimon had endorsed Trump.
Overall, that trend has held for much of this election season. However, talking politics in the workplace is likely to ramp up in the next few weeks as votes pour in and employees head to the polls in November.
Kate Duchene, CEO of global professional services firm RGP, told Fortune that ever since the pandemic, people have further blended their personal and professional worlds, so more talk is likely inevitable.
“For any company, it’s becoming more challenging to keep political conversations completely outside of work,” said Duchene, who consults with 70% of Fortune 500 companies. “Businesses and managers should be aware that these types of conversations are more than likely to happen, especially in the coming weeks. When it comes to political discussions, diversity of opinions should be welcome in the workplace, as long as all parties keep it professional and respectful.”
California
Man charged with murder, kidnapping their 5-year-old child before fleeing to Mexico
A 40-year-old Los Angeles man was charged with murder after allegedly killing his girlfriend and kidnapping their young child before fleeing to Mexico, according to authorities.
Ruben Fregosojuarez has been charged one count of murder and one misdemeanor count of child abuse under circumstance or conditions other than great bodily injury or death, according to a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office news release. Authorities first identified him as Ruben Fregoso but Los Angeles County prosecutors listed him as Ruben Fregosojuarez.
On Monday around 12:39 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a welfare check in the 2600 block of South Alsace Avenue in West Adams, police said in a news release.
Officers found a woman dead inside the home “as a result of violence” and the woman’s daughter missing, police said. On Monday night, the California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert for the child, Daleza.
Photos obtained by NBC4 appear to show Fregosojuarez in a parking garage in San Ysidro with the girl on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol has listed her age as 4 years old but Los Angeles police say the girl is 5. She is also described as the suspect’s daughter.
The alert said that the girl was last seen with Fregosojuarez, who allegedly abducted her in a 2019 Land Rover Discovery, on Sunday at about 4 a.m.
The CHP posted in an update that the vehicle was found but that the child and man were still missing. The girl is described as 3 feet tall, 45 pounds, and having black hair and brown eyes.
California
23andMe Sued by California Over Massive 2023 Data Breach
California’s attorney general is suing the consumer genetics testing company formerly known as 23andMe, alleging the company failed to protect customers’ sensitive personal information in a massive 2023 data breach that exposed the ancestry and genetic data of nearly 7 million people.
Attorney General Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court against Chrome Holding Co., formerly known as 23andMe, accusing the company of failing to properly investigate or respond to numerous warnings that its systems had been compromised. The company’s mail-in self-testing kits became synonymous with DNA testing before it filed for bankruptcy in 2025.
In 2023, cybercriminals breached 23andMe’s systems by using a “credential-stuffing attack,” which involves bombarding online accounts with huge sets of user names and passwords stolen in previous unrelated attacks. Over a period of months, the intruders were able to make off with the personal data of more than 6.9 million people.
“23andMe’s security measures were so lax that the threat actor was able to operate undetected within 23andMe’s systems for over five months, and remarkably, 23andMe only began investigating after the threat actor offered the stolen user data for sale on the dark web and reached out to 23andMe to demand a ransom,” Bonta’s office said in the complaint.
The San Francisco-based company, which allowed people to submit genetic materials and get a snapshot of their ancestry, revealed in October 2023 that hackers had accessed customer information in the prolonged data breach that targeted customers with Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. The stolen data of more than 1 million Asian-Pacific Islander and Ashkenazi Jewish users was later posted for sale on the dark web.
“The sale of this data on the dark web took place amidst a period of mounting anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander and antisemitic hate and violence,” Bonta said in a press release. “This is disturbing and incredibly dangerous.”
A January 2024 lawsuit accused the company of not doing enough to protect its customers and not notifying certain customers that their data had been targeted specifically. It later settled the lawsuit for $30 million.
23andMe representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
At its peak, 23andMe became the best-known name in the emerging area of DNA self-testing, with users paying upwards of $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic makeup, potential relatives and ancestry. But the company’s momentum slowed down in recent years after its $3.5 billion public offering in 2021.
Last July, TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit led by Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s cofounder and former CEO, acquired 23andMe’s assets for $305 million.
California
Newsom signs law to shield California elections from federal interference
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, signed legislation Wednesday that aims to shield California elections from federal interference, saying he expected Donald Trump’s administration to try to meddle in the midterms this year.
The law, which took effect immediately and came days before next Tuesday’s primary, prohibits any person – including federal agents – from accessing voter rolls or election technology without a court order. Law enforcement officers are restricted from disrupting election workers, except in public safety emergencies.
Trump administration officials so far have said they have no plans to send immigration agents to polling locations across the US, a concern raised this year by several Democratic secretaries of state. But Newsom warned “we have to be prepared for everything” because “there’s no rules any more with the Trump administration”.
Voting is already under way in California’s closely watched primary for governor, where a crowded field of Democrats and two viable Republicans are vying for just two spots on the November ballot. Under the state’s open primary system, only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Newsom, who cannot seek a third term, said the election law is a response to “legitimate anxiety” about Trump’s tactics, primarily in Democratic-led states, where the president has deployed federal agents over the objections of local leaders. The Democratic governor warned against underestimating someone who “doesn’t believe in free and fair elections”.
“I expect the worst with Trump because he’s done the worst,” he said at a news conference.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Associated Press later Wednesday that Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections.
“Instead of levying false attacks at the President, Newscum should look in the mirror,” she said in a statement, using Trump’s derogatory nickname for Newsom.
In an interview last year with Vanity Fair, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, knocked down the idea that Trump would deploy the military to suppress voting, saying it was “categorically false”.
The California law also makes it a crime to knowingly take voted ballots out of the custody of election officials.
Earlier this year, the FBI under Trump seized the 2020 general election ballots from Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and has long been at the center of the president’s false claims that fraud cost him the race. The FBI and justice department also have sought records from previous elections in the largest counties in Arizona and Michigan.
Trump triggered a national redistricting frenzy ahead of the midterms when he urged Republicans in Texas and elsewhere to redraw their US House districts to help the party retain control of the closely divided chamber. Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee also have enacted new maps that could benefit Republicans, and Louisiana is expected to be next.
Republicans so far think they could gain as many as 14 seats from redistricting in November, while Democrats think they could gain six in California and Utah.
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