Tesla has started selling cars in Saudi Arabia on Thursday. This comes amid challenges as EVs aren’t really popular in the kingdom, with only 2000 EVs being bought there last year according to Telemetry Analyst Sam Abuelsamid, fewer than Tesla sold between breakfast and dinner on an average day.
There also isn’t a single charging station on a 900-kilometre (559 mile) stretch of its main east-west highway linking the capital Riyadh and the holy city of Mecca. However, Saudi Arabia does have big plans for electric vehicles, and so far, Tesla has been unable to tap into that market because of a feud between its billionaire CEO Elon Musk and the kingdom’s powerful Public Investment Fund (PIF) sovereign wealth fund that dates back to 2018.
Musk’s relationship with the kingdom has improved since he took a high-profile role in President Donald Trump’s election campaign, and then went on to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Trump is set to visit Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks in his first foreign trip, after asking the kingdom in January to spend upwards of $1 trillion in the U.S. economy over four years, including military purchases.
READ: Protests against Musk’s Tesla erupt over DOGE (March 4, 2025)
“Plenty of business people are thinking about how to position their firms around President Trump’s anticipated visit to the Gulf,” said Robert Mogielnicki, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “I suspect Tesla wants to firmly plant their flag in the Saudi market before President Trump’s visit and then try to capitalize on momentum thereafter.”
This comes during a challenging time for Tesla. Tesla posted a 13% drop in first-quarter sales earlier this month, its weakest performance in nearly three years, driven by a backlash against Musk’s politics, rising competition, and delays for a Model Y refresh.
Tesla in Saudi Arabia is also unlikely to face the protests it is facing in the U.S. and Europe, over Musk’s politics and actions while heading DOGE. However, Musk would still have a lot of work to do following his public spat with PIF boss Yasir al-Rumayyan in 2018.
In the following years, Musk missed out on the billions Riyadh has poured into its Vision 2030 program to diversify the economy away from oil. The charging station shortage, and the high temperatures which lead to faster draining of batteries, are some other hurdles Tesla would need to overcome.