Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk has long flirted with rightwing politics, and delights in pushing an image of himself as a contrarian showman. Yet in recent months the billionaire’s political allegiances have started to raise a question for Tesla, the company that he built into the world’s largest electric carmaker: Just how far can he go before customers start to abandon his products?
The German pharmacy chain Rossmann was one of the first to put its head above the parapet this week. The family-owned company announced that it would not add to the 34 Teslas in its company fleet because of Musk’s endorsement of former US president Donald Trump for US president.
“Trump has repeatedly called climate change a hoax,” said Raoul Rossmann, a spokesperson for Rossmann. “This attitude is in stark contrast to Tesla’s mission to contribute to environmental protection through the production of electric cars.”
Musk’s endorsement of Trump has been followed in recent days by inflammatory posts about the far-right riots in the UK. “Civil war is inevitable,” he posted on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter that he bought for US$44 billion in 2022.
That prompted condemnation from left and rightwing politicians in the UK. Musk has also engaged with posts by Tommy Robinson, boosting the visibility of the founder of a British far-right group, and on Thursday posted fake news from the co-leader of another, Britain First.
For some Tesla drivers, Musk’s recent shift has added an unwelcome dimension to their decision on what car to drive.
“I love my Tesla,” a senior executive in the television industry said. “It’s a brilliant car to drive and I really like it. The brand was always forward-looking and something to be proud of.” Now though, “you’re clearly aligning with someone with some pretty horrific views” by buying a Tesla, he said. The executive said he has cancelled his order for a new Tesla, which had been placed through a leasing company.
In Tesla online forums owners of the cars debate whether Musk’s politics have affected the brand. Bumper stickers are available for purchase online featuring slogans such as: “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy.”
Tesla has sold 23,000 cars in the UK in the first half of this year, and X is also one of the UK’s most popular social networks. Yet as a proportion of his global businesses the UK is relatively meagre: 5 percent of Tesla sales and about 8 percent of X users, according to industry estimates.
However, Musk’s US political interventions could be more consequential. He endorsed Trump after the failed assassination attempt last month, and since then has posted regularly supporting the US Republican Party.
On Wednesday, he said the Democrat presidential candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, was “quite literally a communist.”
Trump is not an obvious bedfellow for the boss of the world’s largest electric carmaker. Trump has relentlessly mocked electric cars, although he appeared to change his position last weekend, citing Musk’s support. In Ohio local media, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has railed against electric vehicle (EV) subsidies that benefit Tesla.
Michael Tesler, a professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine, said polling shows that Democrats object to Musk much more than Republicans, even though the latter are much less likely to buy electric cars.
“It’s unclear just how much Musk’s political alignment with Trump and other EV opponents has hurt Tesla,” the professor wrote last month in Good Authority, a political science Web site. “But it is inevitably bad for business when the very prominent face of an EV company is so deeply unpopular with the demographic group who is most likely to buy electric cars.”
One former executive at a large UK car dealer said there would probably be a backlash against Musk in the UK, but not necessarily against Tesla.
“Do I think it’s going to harm their sales? No,” the executive said. Yet Tesla’s reputation among consumers does appear to be suffering.
Polling by the market research firm Caliber shows a clear decline since January 2022 in trust from US consumers who say they trust or like Tesla. Caliber has previously attributed the decline at least partly to polarized views of Musk.
Musk’s actions have already had a negative effect on X, whose customers are businesses — often acutely sensitive to reputation. Musk this week said he had started “war” on advertisers who had abandoned X because of concerns their products would appear beside harmful posts.
Antoine Argouges, the founder of Tulipshare, which has a stake in Tesla to pursue a shareholder activist campaign, said he believed that Musk’s comments could eventually harm Tesla.
Argouges acknowledged that Musk’s previous controversies appeared to have had little impact on customer loyalty. However, “at some point it’s the last straw that breaks the camel’s back,” he said.
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