“As a Black person, I felt like it would be an insult for my mother to drive a Tesla,” one respondent said.
The New York Times surveyed over 7,500 participants. They found that the vast majority of them were critical of Musk’s behavior (particularly his right-wing behavior and antics) — so much so that they wouldn’t buy Tesla cars anymore.
Musk-isms
Elon Musk is one of the richest and most influential people in the world. He runs three giant companies (Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter X) as well as several ventures like Neuralink, xAI, and the Boring Company. He’s also one of the most polarizing people in modern times. He went from everyone’s darling inventor to a far-right enabler and activist.
Musk works hard to keep a public persona, which he uses to fight against what he calls “the woke mind virus”. He has expressed support for several conspiracy theories and widely discredited ideas. He’s become the kind of billionaire who calls COVID-19 a “common cold” and who praises China and tweets Pizzagate memes. Unsurprisingly, some people don’t like this.
“There’s a time when I’d have given Musk an organ if he needed one,” said Tim Yocum, an engineering director at a software company. But Mr. Yocum is both displeased with Musk and unsatisfied with his Tesla Model S and the company’s repair and maintenance services. “This car will be the last Tesla I own.”
Aaron Shepherd, a Seattle-based product designer for Microsoft, says the billionaire’s politics made him opt for a different electric car and not a Tesla.
“You’re basically driving around a giant red MAGA hat,” Shepherd said.
Some people perceive Musk as antisemitic while others were concerned with how much he could change a car’s features on a whim. Derek Morf, a high school math teacher in Verona, N.J., was alarmed that “the vehicle I purchased could have features changed in an instant simply because one man had that much control.”
Reputation slumping
Granted, this is an NYT survey. The readers of the magazine are very likely not representative of the entire US, let alone the entire world. This survey should therefore not be taken as hard evidence of an overall shift in perspective.
However, this decline of Musk’s favorability also seems to reflect on Tesla. Tesla’s reputation is slumping. After being ranked #42 in 2019 in a global company reputation survey and constantly rising for a few years, they peaked at #8 in 2021. They were the stock market’s wonder child and an almost universally beloved company. Now, Tesla’s brand reputation continues to slip, sitting firmly in the #60s. Elon Musk’s antics are one of the reasons that tarnished this once-impeccable image.
This is not to say that Musk doesn’t have his fans, or that everyone who dislikes Musk isn’t buying a Tesla.
“He has led a company that has successfully disrupted a corrupt, lazy car industry,” said Julian Mehnle, a software engineer who lives in San Francisco. While no fan of Mr. Musk, Mr. Mehnle said, “I’m adult enough to separate these concerns from my choice of consumer products.”
Burning bridges
However, the odds that Musk is attracting more fans than he is losing is “very low” Greg Silverman, the global director of brand economics at Interbrand, also quoted by the NYT.
Ultimately, Elon Musk has chosen to walk around with a giant megaphone. He’s turned one of the biggest social media platforms into an amplifier for his views and whimsically changes his products — that’s bound to upset some people. While Musk’s contributions to the world are significant, his attempts to sway public opinion to his liking seem to be backfiring. Companies like Tesla, once heralded for their innovation and market disruption, have become a lightning rod for personal opinions and culture wars.
“Whether you hate me, like me, or are indifferent, do you want the best car, or do you not want the best car,” Musk told audiences in November.
Whether or not Tesla is the best car is debatable. But, for some people, Musk’s behavior and public persona are enough to give some people the ‘ick’ factor.
