SAN FRANCISCO >> Some employees and investors in electric automaker Tesla Motors have begun speaking out over fears CEO Elon Musk’s alliance with President Donald Trump is harming the company and its long-standing goal of building a more sustainable future.

Employees and senior managers openly expressed concern that Musk is damaging the company’s business and sustainability mission in a recent staff meeting at one Tesla division, according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post.

Across the company, there is growing frustration at Musk, who some employees feel has become increasingly disengaged from Tesla due to his role in the Trump administration, where he heads the U.S. DOGE Service that aims to cut government spending, two Tesla employees said.

There is also rising concern inside Tesla that Musk’s close relationship with Trump, a divisive figure, has tarnished its brand with some consumers, said the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs.

In another portion of the recent staff meeting, senior managers indicated that they believe the company would be better off if Musk resigned, one employee said.

Confidence in Tesla has also slipped among investors: Tesla shares are down 12 percent over the last month.

New registrations of Tesla vehicles in Germany dropped nearly 60 percent in January from the previous month, according to the country’s Federal Motor Transport Authority. Musk appeared at a rally for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party last month.

Tesla workers and investors are no strangers to Musk’s hard-charging management style and aggressive public persona. But the meeting recording and interviews with employees show that the CEO’s recent support for far-right politicians in Europe and his central role in Trump’s government have pushed some workers to question Musk’s leadership in a way they previously have not.

“He seems to have ghosted his own company,” said Nell Minow, vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, who donated the majority of her Tesla stock to charity last year. “He has inflicted a massive amount of damage on the perception of that company.”

Minow said she felt Musk’s attention was already spread too thinly across his six companies before he took on his role with DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency. Now, Minow said she is baffled as to why Tesla’s board hasn’t intervened or sought to reassure shareholders that its CEO still has a steady grip on the company.

Spokespeople for Tesla did not return a request for comment. Musk did not return a request for comment.

Musk’s work in Washington has triggered protests in cities across the United States, with attendees featuring his name and face prominently on placards and signs. On Thursday, climate activists in Seattle protested outside one of Tesla’s showrooms in the city.

The goal was to draw attention to Musk’s actions as head of DOGE, which amount to a government coup, said Emily Johnston, a climate activist who helped organize the protest.

“Hurting Tesla commercially is part of it, anyone who cares about democracy should be ashamed to drive a Tesla,” Johnston said. “That is the best leverage that the general public has is to tank his reputation.”

Another 24 protests are planned for Saturday at Tesla showrooms and offices across the country, according to a webpage set up by activist group ACRE to help coordinate the gatherings.

Musk has said DOGE is working “120 hours” a week, evoking moments when he has become hyper-focused on a problem at one of his business ventures. He has previously spoken of sleeping on Tesla factory floors when the company faced production issues, and moved into Twitter’s headquarters for a time after he bought the company in 2022 and promptly fired the majority of its staff.

The billionaire’s massive financial support for Trump’s presidential campaign and his position as head of DOGE have vaulted him into another high-pressure situation and made him one of the most powerful political figures in the United States.

On Thursday, Musk met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On Tuesday, he held a news conference with Trump in the Oval Office. Earlier that day Trump signed an executive order commanding government departments to run all hiring decisions through DOGE.

Musk’s agency has begun firing staff and cutting programs at agencies and departments across Washington, even as federal judges have found some of their actions illegal and ordered them to stop.

The rapid changes and moves by DOGE representatives to control and monitor federal IT systems have prompted many federal workers to become cautious about how they communicate with colleagues.

Inside Tesla, most discussion of discomfort with the CEO happens quietly over lunch or in private messages, one of the employees who spoke with The Post said, and workers use external communication tools, fearing the company could be monitoring staff for signs of disloyalty.

Tesla has long used the slogan “Accelerating the World’s Transition to Sustainable Energy.” Some employees now question whether Musk still supports that mission, due to his close alliance with Trump, who has taken action to favor fossil fuels over renewable energy sources, according to discussion on the meeting recording.

As Musk grew more immersed in right-wing politics in recent years, he axed a low-cost Tesla model that could have accelerated electric vehicle adoption and became convinced fighting climate change is less urgent than he once thought, The Post previously reported.

Kevin Smith, a longtime Tesla shareholder and owner of two of the company’s vehicles, sold all his stock, fewer than 50 shares, in November because he said Musk had become too “toxic.”

He once felt pride in supporting Tesla and its mission of building a sustainable future, Smith said. “I was part of a community that I was proud to be part of,” said Smith, a software engineer. He was able to separate Musk from the brand, even as the CEO became increasingly distracted with his other ventures and frequently espoused conspiracy theories online, he said.

As Musk publicly embraced Trump and supported the candidate’s desire to eliminate federal electric vehicle tax credits — which have been hugely beneficial to Tesla — Smith started to feel Musk had “crossed a line,” he said. The billionaire’s frequent amplification of falsehoods during the election campaign was the breaking point, Smith said.

“We invested into this vision of what he stood for, and the old mission was for Tesla to build the sustainable future,” he said. “I bought into the scam and that’s on me — but now he’s doing the same thing to the country.”

Will Oremus contributed to this report.