Analysts at UBS said on Monday they expected the company to deliver 367,000 cars in the first quarter of the year, down from an earlier forecast of 437,000.

Tesla sales almost halved in Europe in January and fell by 49pc in China in February. It has seen a particularly severe drop in Germany, Europe’s biggest car market, where sales fell 76pc in February.

In addition to the sales decline, investors have raised concerns that Mr Musk’s work on Doge, the Trump administration’s federal cost-cutting effort, could distract from his leadership of the company.

Rival carmakers have sought to capitalise on Mr Musk’s unpopularity among some motorists. Sweden’s Polestar has said that the Tesla boss’s interventions in German politics is an opportunity.

South Korea’s Kia has taken out adverts in Norwegian newspapers showing its cars with a bumper sticker reading: “I bought this after Elon went crazy”, a twist on the stickers that some Tesla owners have bought distancing themselves from Mr Musk.

Tesla remains by far the world’s most valuable carmaker, worth more than twice as much as Japan’s Toyota. Mr Musk is still significantly richer than the world’s second-richest man, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg.