The poll shows that public views of Musk are increasingly polarized, with Republican support of the billionaire rising while Democratic support falls.

The poll shows that public views of Musk are increasingly polarized, with Republican support of the billionaire rising while Democratic support falls.

Elon Musk’s support among Democrats has withered to a new low as he has embraced Republican politics, according to a national NBC News poll.

Only 6% of Democrats in the poll, which was conducted Sept. 13-17, said they had positive feelings about Musk, while 79% said they had negative feelings. The numbers were flipped for Republicans, with 62% having positive feelings toward him and 14% negative feelings. Independents were split, 31% to 36%.

The poll shows that views of Musk are increasingly polarized, reflecting the transformation of his public image in recent years from that of an environmentally aware automaker crusading against fossil fuels to that of a conservative activist aligned with former President Donald Trump.

  • garretble@lemmy.worldEnglish
    120·
    2 个月前

    “I, a genius, will alienate the group who want EVs to curry favor with the group who will never buy EVs. Genius, I say.”

    • beebarfbadger@lemmy.world
      19·
      2 个月前

      The next tesla model will have a coal oven inside it. Will still run on electricity, the oven is just in there so you can do some pollution too. The main factor in making the electric part palpable to republicans will be telling them how brown people are being exploited to get the materials for the batteries out of the ground.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
        5·
        2 个月前

        Nah, it will be worse. Tesla will start selling a hybrid model with a generator onboard that can charge the battery as you go. That generator will be designed to be fueled by ground-up burning tires, unrecycleable plastic, and human hair. .

      • desconectado@lemm.ee
        1·
        2 个月前

        I’m fine with this, fuck it, if it takes a pos like Elon to make republicans to buy EV , I’m fine it, the silver lining is that at least both sides will buy electric.

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
    60·
    2 个月前

    Who. Fucking. Cares.

    (Not directed at OP, just the idea of the survey in general. Who needed to know this information? Why do they think the public needs to know how popular a random rich guy it’s.)

    • pyre@lemmy.world
      45·
      2 个月前

      he’s not a random rich guy and claiming that is either disingenuous or irresponsible. though i get the frustration, just because he’s a demonic troglodyte you wish you never heard about anymore doesn’t mean you get to ignore his existence. then they get to do whatever they want.

      pushback, scrutiny and ridicule are the only tools we have against massively influential cunts. and because they’re massively influential, their popularity matters.

      • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
        6·
        2 个月前

        There’s also the fact that if people hate him enough and realise how genuinely stupid the guy is, they’ll start wondering if the economic system that allowed him to amass the wealth of a country as millions starve might be doing it wrong.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 个月前

          even before that, if enough people hate him, his personal brand would become toxic and his influence would hopefully shrink.

    • gt24@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      2 个月前

      Someone may want to know if you are a Democrat or Republican (for advertising, for gerrymandering, whatever). That person may not be able to ask you a direct question like that though (or may feel that you may lie about the answer to such a question anyway).

      As such, they likely carry out occasional surveys asking people who are Democrat or Republicans for their opinions on something else. Once they find something else that can strongly correlate your political affiliation with a specific opinion, they know of a new question they can ask someone. That new question should generally reveal what your political party is most likely and they can then proceed with that “most likely” answer.

      So “who cares” is those who cannot directly ask you something. They will ask you something else and use that answer to deduce the information they cannot obtain directly.

    • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
      8·
      2 个月前

      Considering how politically active he is, he might become a politician (even running for president?). A lot of people will care about this if suddenly Elon musk appears in American ballots.

      EDIT: I just remembered that Elon cannot run for USA president. But idk if other political positions are open.

      And seeing how trump can break every law, I don’t see what would prevent Elon from running for president.

      • Facebones@reddthat.com
        1·
        2 个月前

        With our current SCOTUS all he has to do is sue then ride it up to SCOTUS and have em declare it unconstitutional to have requirements for office.

      • repungnant_canary@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 个月前

        That’s kind of a paradox - we can’t stop reporting actions of assholes like him because they do things borderline dangerous to society, but that exact reporting gives them the popularity to do all that

    • angrystego@lemmy.world
      7·
      2 个月前

      Money is power. Rich people are more powerful than politics. We should care much more about them than we do now. Musk is dangerous. He’s also visible and that’s a good thing. The quiet invisible ones are even more dangerous.

    • EnderMB@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 个月前

      Pretty much every media outlet across the world.

      The opposing party in the UK is electing leaders, and they’ve all been asked what they think of him. Like it or not, but in turning one of the biggest multi-billion dollar social media platforms into a small million dollar right-wing platform for crypto bots, he’s now got a lot of influence on politics across the world.

      What makes it funnier is that he probably doesn’t give a fuck about the Tories in the UK, but if Trump loses he’ll own a right-wing platform with zero influence on what he cares about.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
      2·
      2 个月前

      It’s not for us, it is for him.

      He really cares how popular he is, that is why he is buying all these popular businesses to pretend he founded them.

  • WolfdadCigarette@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
    30·
    2 个月前

    Something to avoid- standing near a parked Tesla with sentry mode enabled drains its battery significantly as it tracks you. Locating a camera and displaying a paper sign, one light enough to blow in the wind that reads “musk sucks”, would accomplish the same thing, and should also be avoided.

    • cubism_pitta@lemmy.world
      25·
      2 个月前

      While funny… I think you underestimate how big the battery in a Tesla is and also how little power the computer would pull.

      THAT said… I wonder if there is a drive somewhere that could be filled doing that?

      • WolfdadCigarette@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
        11·
        2 个月前

        From what I understand, it wastes an extra ~2%/hr. A tragic sum, if done repeatedly throughout the week. I think it overwrights old data as the drive fills. I can’t see utility in that, aside from mischievously scrubbing old footage.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 个月前

          It’s nowhere near 2% an hour. It’s like ~300w/h to keep it all running, and they said they were going to reduce that further by 40% in the near future, so ~180w/h

          300w/h on a 62kw/h (model 3 standard range) battery is 0.48% an hour. You’d lose 3.82% for an 8h workday, and soon to be 2.29%

          And the % would decrease as the battery is larger like a long range vehicle.

          I’m not saying this is ideal, but 2%/h is just flat out wrong, and almost a whole order of magnitude after the update.

    • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
      16·
      2 个月前

      YOU might not. But I’m sure the politicians and bureaucrats who determine whether Musk’s businesses continue getting billions in taxpayer funded subsidies would sure like to know if the public is behind continuing to do that. I for one would consider it a bonus if say, the Democrats won control in November, looked at the numbers and decided none of their supporters are behind Musk, determined he’s been playing fast and loose using taxpayer dollars to fund pushing his own political agenda, and turned off the free ride.

        • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 个月前

          They don’t. But if they already have it in for someone, which the Democrats in Congress almost certainly do right now, public opinion can give them a cover to act.

          It’s certainly not for our benefit, but if one group of shitlords wants to take another shitlord down a few pegs, I’m certainly going to enjoy the show.

    • Soup@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      2·
      2 个月前

      Right? Just said the same thing. Man. Journalism is getting cringey and embarrassing lately.

  • hddsx@lemmy.ca
    13·
    2 个月前

    Why is musk’s(and Swift’s) popularity newsworthy? Unless they are trying to run for office, who cares?

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
      33·
      2 个月前

      Musk has continued to interfere with politics over and over again. From donations, to censorship, to being a weird fucking creep to female politicians.

      Swift was dragged in there because Donald Trump shared fake AI images of her supporting Donald. To fix the blowback, Swift said, “Ew you old filthy pedo, I’m not doing that”. (Don’t quote me)

      Its newsworthy because it’s news.

      • hddsx@lemmy.ca
        3·
        2 个月前

        So Musk is a creepy dickhead. That’s not news. It’s been apparent for quite a while now

    • blackbelt352@lemmy.world
      7·
      2 个月前

      Because they have lots of money and influence among the 18-35 demographic. Would I prefer if news corps didn’t cover their every move and thought? Yeah I would, but unfortunately news featuring Musk and Swift gets clicks which drives advertising.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
    12·
    2 个月前

    62% positive isn’t really the flipside of 79% negative.
    If you combine the 6 and 62% positive and estimate they are about equal size demographics, it’s only about 34% positive combined, with 47% negative.
    I bet that when Tesla collapses, the 62% positive republicans will decline too. Republicans are only positive towards him because they think he is some sort of money guru.

    Tesla is losing marketshare hard in Europe, and probably in China too, if it isn’t happening already in USA it is probably imminent, as Tesla developments of new cars can’t keep up with the pace of the competition, and Tesla models are looking more and more outdated. Tesla is already looking like a failing company, despite they have by far the biggest marketshare in pure EV.

    • mean_bean279@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      2 个月前

      Tesla also lost a ton of the initial talent that made the model S and X such incredible feats of technology. IMO, if I buy and electric car here in the states it’s a Lucid, and if I get an SUV it’s a Rivian.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 个月前

        The new Lucid air looks awesome, FFS 1234 hp and 1.9 sec 0-60 mph !! The more moderate Touring trim is $85k which comes to almost $110k here with taxes.
        That’s a bit above my pay grade, but the BMW i4 is very popular here (Denmark) and is almost half that. A way better option than any Tesla IMO.

    • Redfugee@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 个月前

      This isn’t reflected in the stock price. It’s one of the stocks I keep an eye on and I constantly see articles about the company in trouble and losing market share and yet the stock continues to keep ticking up. I’ll believe it’s failing when the market starts to turn on it.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 个月前

        A lot of people believe Tesla isn’t a car company anymore, but an AI and energy company. And the stock value seems to be based on that.
        But those branches bring in very little revenue, and I doubt Tesla will ever succeed in those branches.
        Musk has promised for 8 years that fully autonomous driving would be available next year. But they are not even a leader like they claim.
        Musk is either nuts or a con man.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    2 个月前

    Is that the 6% that are buying Tesla’s? Seriously though it’s not like the right are buying his electric cars

        • ImADifferentBirdEnglish
          2·
          2 个月前

          I’ve heard that they have people on payroll specifically to keep Elon as far away as possible from operations.