Abstract The Young's modulus and the transport and magnetic properties of polycrystalline La0.5Ca0.5−xTexMnO3 ( x = 0 , 0.05, and 0.1) have been studied systematically. It was found that with increasing Te content, the resistivity decreases, the Curie temperature T C increases and the relative Young's modulus decreases. We suggest that Te doping destroys the charge ordering (CO) and induces the ferromagnetic (FM) metallic state accompanied by an evolution from the Q 3 -type distorting mode to Q 2 -type one. In addition, we found that the evolution from magnetic to electronic phase separation is close related to the rapid decrease in the ratio of two kinds of Jahn–Teller distortion modes Q 3 and Q 2 , i.e., Q 3 / Q 2 .