Sheryl Crow protests Elon Musk by selling Tesla and donating money to NPR

The ‘If It Makes You Happy’ singer posted a video of herself waving goodbye to her Tesla

Sheryl Crow has gotten rid of her Tesla in protest at the car company’s owner Elon Musk.

The 63 year-old Nashville-based musician referred to the controversial CEO and Trump advisor as “President Musk.”

She said she had also donated money to National Public Radio [NPR], which she described as being “under threat.”

Crow posted a video to her Instagram showing her waving goodbye to her Tesla. In the caption, she wrote: “My parents always said… you are who you hang out with.

“There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with. So long Tesla.

“Money donated to [NPR], which is under threat by President Musk, in hopes that the truth will continue to find its way to those willing to know the truth.”

Sheryl Crow attending the Grammys in February 2025 (Getty Images)

Last week it was reported that Tesla sales are plunging worldwide amid Musk’s new role in the Trump White House.

Tesla sales in France fell 63 percent last month over the previous January, and sank 59.5 percent in Germany in the same month-to-month period amid a backlash against Musk over his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. That was the worst January since 2021 for Tesla sales in Germany.

Sales were also down in the UK.

In China, one of the company’s largest markets, sales were down 11.5 percent in January year-over-year, while Tesla’s Chinese rival BYD hit a nearly 50 percent increase during the same period.

“There is an argument to be made that Tesla is beginning to be penalized for Musk’s close relationship to Trump,” Mike O’Rourke, chief market strategist at Jonestrading, wrote in a research note, Bloomberg noted.

Crow has long been known for her political outspokenness. Her 1998 album The Globe Sessions was banned from sale in Walmart stores across America because of a lyric on the song “Love is a Good Thing”, which she refused to change: “Watch our children as they kill each other / With a gun they bought at the Walmart discount stores”.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Another track, the scathing protest song “Redemption Day”, was written after Crow played a USO (United Service Organisations) show to American peacekeepers in war-torn Bosnia and was struck that there had been no equivalent intervention by the US in the Rwandan genocide.

“At the time it was pretty graphic to see dead bodies in Rwanda on TV and to know that no one was stepping in to defend these people,” Crow told The Independent in 2021. “That was the impetus for writing the song.”