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Its April Fool’s Day today, but unfortunately for Tesla investors, the companys latest vehicle sales numbers out of Europe are no joke. Over both the past month and calendar quarter, Tesla sales in several key markets on the continent have plummeted, according to data viewed by Reuters. Heres what to know about the latest Tesla sales data from Europe, as well as how the companys stock is reacting today. Tesla sales in several key European countries plummet First, let’s break down Teslas March sales in several key markets. This is the sales data available for several European nations for March 2025 versus the same month a year earlier: France: down 36.83% to 3,157 car sales Sweden: down 63.9% to 911 car sales Norway: down 1% to 2,211 car sales Denmark: down 65.6% to 593 car sales Netherlands: down 61% to 1,536 car sales Spain: up 34% to 1,983 car sales And here is how Tesla sales performed in key European markets over the course of the calendar quarter, from January to March 2025, versus the same period a year earlier: France: down 41.1% Sweden: down 55.3% Norway: down 12.5% Denmark: down 56.4% Netherlands: down 49.7% Spain: down 12% As you can see from the numbers above, Tesla saw significant sales declines in the six European nations for the first quarter. The only slight glimmer of light for the company in the countries above was in Spain, which in March alone saw 34% sales growth in the Iberian nation. Yet Spains sales jump in March does little to sugarcoat the fact that Teslas sales on the continent are facing significant declines. Teslas largest European market is the United Kingdom, for which there are no public March sales numbers yet. Why are Tesla sales cratering in Europe? There are two main reasons Tesla sales on the continent continue to decline, notes Reuters. The first is increased competition. As Reuters points out, Teslas offerings on the continent are aging, and its competitors are offering newer and cheaper electric vehicles. This includes both European carmakers and Chinese automakers that sell their cars on the continent. But the second reason is arguably the more difficult one for Tesla as a company to address. Simply put, as is the case in America, Tesla CEO Elon Musks political antics are driving customers away from the brand. Elon Musk is not only firmly entwined with the Trump administration in U.S. political circles, but he has also voiced support for far-right parties in Europe. This has made both Musk and the Tesla brand toxic in many Europeans’ eyes, and those Europeans are now abandoning the Tesla brand in droves. Many Europeans also joined in worldwide protests outside Tesla stores over the weekend, highlighting the degree to which many have become fed up with Musk, and by association, his company. How has TSLA stock reacted? Despite the negative European sales news, Tesla shares (Nasdaq: TSLA) are up about 1.6% in early market trading as of the time of this writing. Currently, TSLA shares are sitting around $263.40. There are a few reasons why investors might not be freaking out so much over the reported European numbers. First, Europe is a relatively small market for Tesla compared to the United States, its largest market, and China, its second-largest. Second, Tesla shares have already crashed hard this year. Year to date, TSLA stock is down over 35% in 2025. It’s likely that many investors are taking a wait-and-see approach to just how badly Tesla sales have been affected worldwide in its most recent quarter. Tesla is expected to announce its Q1 2025 results later this month, likely during the week of April 22.
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Despite a triumphant world premiere at Cannes last May, the politically unsparing Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice was stuck in cinematic limbo. Distributors had snapped up rights in Canada, Japan, Germany, and several other countries, but after a cease-and-desist letter from Trump himself, domestic distributors opted to pass. Lacking any better options to promote the movie and prove public demand, The Apprentice team turned to Kickstarter. The filmmakers campaign hit its $100,000 target in just 12 hoursand ultimately raised four times that amount. (The campaign eventually quadrupled it.) That grassroots support not only funded marketing and screening opportunities, it raised the films profile, helping it secure stateside distribution. The Apprentice went on to earn Oscar nods in February for stars Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. It also proved how the publics faith in a creative project can counterbalance Hollywoods risk aversionespecially when Kickstarter is involved. The Apprentice campaign is a powerful example of how creatorseven those with established platformsare using Kickstarter not just to fund projects, but to secure agency over their work and forge more direct connections with their audience, says Taylor K. Shaw, senior outreach lead of Kickstarters film division. The leading crowdfunding platform for creative projects, Kickstarter has helped hundreds of thousands of creators raise a total of over $8.6 billion since its 2009 launch. Its also proved to be a crucial resource for budding artists, some of whom have gone on to do major Hollywood films. (Directors Jeremy Saulnier and David F. Sandberg, for instance, both used the platform before making the Netflix hit Rebel Ridge and the superhero blockbuster Shazam, respectively.) Kickstarter projects have also collectively netted 19 Oscar nominationsincluding The Apprentices twoand four wins. And now, in a post-pandemic, post-Double Strike landscape, in which major studios are reassessing their budgets and productions are down 40% from 2022, creators of all sorts are starting to see Kickstarter as a vital means of support. That marks a major shift in the way creators view the platform. There was a time when crowdfunding tools like Kickstarter were primarily seen as a way for creators to get projects off the ground, not sustain careers. Directors Zach Braff and Rob Thomas received backlash when they used Kickstarter to fund their different projects in 2013, with some claiming theyd exploited their own fans loyalties in order to skirt typical funding challenges. While crowdfunding a Marvel movie remains inconceivable in 2025comic book movies are now among the only remaining films to still reliably receive studio backingmassive shifts in the entertainment industry have since flipped the script around other kinds of projects. In the age of streaming wars and fragmenting viewership, when some studios would rather ditch completed films for a tax write-off than possibly see them underperform, the challenges creators now face in making passion projects are too often insurmountable. Most filmmakers, both emerging and established, are being told that there is little to no funding available for their original ideas, says Shaw, who works directly with creators to shape their Kickstarter campaigns. They go from pitching everyone they know and getting lots of nos, to having to decide if they want to create their film independently or not. Kickstarter is where they go when they cant wait for a greenlight. But its not just the industry that has changed over the past decadeaudiences perceptions of crowdfunding have evolved, too. Fans who understand the mechanics of Hollywood are more likely to view crowdfunding as a legitimate path for projects of any pedigree, and seem to understand that many creators are turning to their communities for support out of necessitynot convenience. According to Shaw, the projects most likely to get funded on Kickstarter arent necessarily those with ultra-topical plotlines or with big names like Sebastian Stan attached. Rather, its those with a clear vision and a direct line to an engaged audience. Creators with locked-in fan bases, like the hosts of Dungeons & Dragons podcast Critical Role, for instance, can handily bring an existing community to a Kickstarter campaign, as those hosts did with their TV series The Legend of Vox Machina, which raised over $11 million and eventually landed a distribution deal with Amazon Prime. (The show recently concluded its third season.) As for what sort of film and TV projects will be getting funded on Kickstarter in the future, the platform is doubling down on a handful of genres in 2025. Weve seen especially strong engagement around animation, horror and thriller, short films and comedy, where fan bases are incredibly passionate and communities around those projects tend to be especially active, Shaw says. Because those categories already have strong traction, were leaning in with more focused outreach and support to help those creators take full advantage of the momentum that exists. In the meantime, the platform is also supporting all creators who use it by continuing to evolve its arsenal of tools for planning and promoting campaigns and engaging backers. Most recently, Kickstarter rolled out an integrated set of pledge management tools that streamline the logistical processes creators go through after successfully funding projectslike collecting backer info, offering add-ons, and shipping out rewardsall directly through the Kickstarter platform. The company also just launched a new feature called Pledge Over Time, which gives backers the option to split their pledge into four equal payments. Most Kickstarter campaigns offer different rewards for different sizes of contribution, and this latest feature allows cash-strapped fans to access higher-tier rewards for the projects they most want to see in the world. By helping to provide what creators need and what fans want, at a volatile time in Hollywood, Kickstarter has emerged as a welcoming oasis of greenlights for creators of all stripes. As gatekeepers become increasingly reluctant to fund projects outside of well-established intellectual properties, the platform is redistributing the right to decide whether or not the show must go on.
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President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, will face questions from senators during his confirmation hearing Tuesday about his qualifications to become the top U.S. military officer.Caine is a decorated F-16 combat pilot who served in leadership positions in multiple special operations commands and in some of the Pentagon’s most classified programs. He does not, however, meet the prerequisites for Joint Chiefs chairman, although they can be waived by the president.Caine was nominated by Trump in February, one day after the president fired the former chairman, Gen. CQ Brown Jr., in a purge of general officers whom he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth viewed as endorsing diversity, equity and inclusion in the ranks.Caine met Trump when the president visited troops in Iraq in 2018 during his first term. Trump has told political supporters the encounter left an impression on himand that Caine put on a red “Make America Great Again” hat at the time, something Caine’s inner circle has said is not true.Caine has been described by former military colleagues as a deeply serious career officer who has spent the past few weeks meeting with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, said a former U.S. official who has helped Caine prepare for the confirmation process and spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details on Caine’s nomination. Hegseth notably refused to meet with many Democrats when he was going through the confirmation process.Because he retired in December, Caine would need to be sworn back into active duty. That would take place after he is confirmed, and then he would be promoted to four-star general, the official said.Caine’s nomination following the ouster of Brown is likely to raise questions from some Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee about whether he will remain independent of Trump.During Trump’s first term, his relationship with then-Chairman Gen. Mark Milley soured as Milley pushed back and took steps to try to prevent what he saw as an attempt to politicize the office, such as by reminding military service members they take an oath to the Constitution, not to a president.The relationship soured to the extent that within hours of Trump being sworn in office in January, Milley’s portrait as chairman of the Joint Chiefs was removed from the Pentagon. Trump and Hegseth have subsequently stripped Milley of his security clearance and security detail.Caine does not meet prerequisites laid out in a 1986 law, such as being a combatant commander or service chief. The law, however, allows presidents to waive those requirements to fill the position with someone they are most comfortable with.While Caine would be the military’s top uniformed officer, his chief duty would be serving as the president’s top military adviser.But Caine has spent time inside the Pentagon, leading its Special Access Programs Central Office, which oversees what classified information on weapons programs is shared with foreign governments.He also served as the commander of the joint special operations task force in Iraq in 2008 and as the assistant commanding general of joint special operations command at Fort Bragg. From 2018 to 2019, he was the deputy commanding general of the special operations joint task force for Operation Inherent Resolve, countering the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.He also was associate director for military affairs at the CIA from 2021 until he retired in December.Caine transferred into the National Guard in 2009 and began working in the private sector, including as an adviser at an investment firm run by the brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.He has more than 2,800 flying hours in the F-16 and has earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bronze Star Medal with bronze oak leaf cluster, among other awards. Tara Copp, Associated Press
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