Three things are no secret: 1) Elon Musk benefits more than any other individual from Tesla’s success, 2) Elon Musk has gotten extremely involved in political matters (emphasis on “extremely”), and 3) many people won’t buy Tesla products because of those first two facts.
New research from JW Surety Bonds finds that 1 out of 4 Americans “avoid Tesla’s technology due to their opinions on Elon Musk.” That’s a full quarter of the US public that won’t consider great electric vehicles, including the best selling vehicle in the world, because of Musk’s highly abnormal involvement in US politics.
Before we get to more of the research, it should also be noted that Musk has been getting more and more involved, including in highly abnormal and extremely right-wing ways, in European politics — in the UK, Italy, Germany, and other major auto markets. Without a doubt, this is starting to impact consumer behavior in Europe as well.
I can’t think of anything else as significant in consumer product sales. Yes, there are some other highly politically engaged business people, but they aren’t so directly involved or tied to significant mass-market products. (I’m not counting the MyPillow guy, for example.) There are founders and CEOs of major corporations who are known political actors, but not so openly and loudly that they draw widely significant scrutiny or tarnish the brand they represent.
The best way to fight the oligarchy is to stop paying them.
If you are not self aware enough to be embarrassed that you are driving a cybertruck do not worry, everyone who sees you driving it is embarrassed for you.
Cybertruck drivers must truly believe that everyone around them is so happy and impressed. As they look in at all other drivers on the road, they all have huge, incredulous smiles on their faces… Of course it’s fully because everyone they are seeing is mid laugh when they see the jackass that dropped over $100k on that divorced dad tramp stamp of a car. So people burst out laughing at that rusty death machine that permanently breaks if you take it through the carwash. The owners have trouble reading emotion in faces though, so they must just feel like a million bucks as they arrive home, grab the items they went to pickup at the store (ED meditation and father’s day greeting cards they are forging to send to themselves) and the trunk severs their coke pinkie with the long fingernail.
I mean, there’s also the fact that his cars are expensive, and shit.
75% of americans are selfish assholes.
Opinions of him are negative here in the UK as well. In April 2022, 40% of Brits had an unfavourable opinion of him. By August 2024, that had risen to 64%.
Right. Because that’s the ONLY reason we aren’t buying Tesla shit. It has nothing to do with the cost of everything sky rocketing.
How many of those are the target demographic for Tesla?
I would not buy a Tesla because of musk, but also because I don’t have the need for a car or the income for one.
Plenty. Like, it’s only anecdotal but I could buy a Tesla, and am in the market for an EV. A Tesla just isn’t even an option to be considered, if for no other reason than how I can’t bring myself to give money to the guy.
You avoid Teslas because of Elon Musk. I avoid Teslas because of security, privacy, and proprietary tech concerns.
We are not the same.
/j
I avoid them because they keep bursting into flames/accelerating out of control.
I avoid teslas because I have a white car and I don’t want them to crash into me.
That’s a full quarter of the US public that won’t consider great electric vehicles
This is subjective.
including the best selling vehicle in the world
This is distorted by the fact that they have fewer than half a dozen models. They aren’t even in the top 10 brands world wide. BYD is in the top 10 and they sell twice as many vehicles.
Tesla isn’t growing and as the foul Musk spread through global politics the brand will fall more. He wasted his first mover advantage. It’s just a waiting game on how long the market will remain irrational with the stock price.
Exactly this, I would’ve bought one eventually if he’d just shut up, a lot of would.
But why would I support an openly racist, fascist, fuckhead trying to buy his way into power? Toyota, Honda, Kia, and all the other corpos are plenty evil and have the manufacturing and support experience an auto maker needs.
The idea of a generic parts “libreauto” is cool. A frame/chassis designed to accept drop-in parts from other established manufacturers so you could part out wrecked cars and assemble them into your own frankencar.
Oh yes, 3 ton chunks of metal speeding down the street build by the local methhead of of parts of wrecked cars. Seems very idyllic.
Tesla has “tech”!?!??
They sell average EVs, a bunch of branded meme items, and a stock. No tech.
They’re also not good cars. There’s no reason to buy a new one in 2025
Even if they fired Elon tomorrow I wouldn’t buy one for this reason. A few years ago they were the only viable option for an electric car, so people overlooked a lot to get one of them. But now there’s a ton of electric cars and even more coming out in the future. Why would I go with a company that’s had pretty significant issues over one from a company with more experience building cars?
Exactly. There’s no need to tolerate body panel issues, awful interiors, bad QC, lack of replacement parts, and dangerous welds now that I can get a used electric Porsche for a similar price.
Even now I’m pretty sure they have one of the best if not the best drivetrains. The problem is everything else is total trash and you won’t be able to fix it if anything goes wrong
That’s the thing that sucks. Engine tech is incredible. Everything else is miserably and embarassingly bad. Even if Elmo wasn’t such a colossal fucking bigot, I would never consider getting a Tesla for the asking price, or used
In 2014 I would have if I really needed an EV, but these days I can just get an Audi.
Fair point. I have considered Tesla swapping a Prius because it would be hilarious
Yeah fuck this guy
great electric vehicles
Count me among the boycotters. Musk has made it all but certain I’ll never ever buy any product or service he benefits from if I can avoid it.
Also…
Musk’s highly abnormal involvement in
USworld politicsThere. FTFY.
He is one of the most dangerous people today. Not one penny of my money will go to him willingly from me.
I might willingly give him a penny. But only after its been electromagnetically accelerated to sufficient speed by a pair of charged rails.
I fucking hate saying this and agree but it doesn’t matter if any of our money goes to him… he’s a legit supervillain that has the most money. It’s insane. Nothing matters anymore. (Okay some things matter, if someone buys a tesla, money notwithstanding, they also forfeit their privacy)
So, not Iron Man at all, then, just Lex Luthor with hair plugs.
And he actually even has the hair plugs
I’m trying to decide if second hand purchases would somehow have upstream effects.
Yes, because then the original purchase has more value.
I hate how, when he needs some money, he can just drop a crypto meme coin name somewhere on social media and watch the price go up. He can then sell all of the coins he undoubtedly bought beforehand and sit back and watch a couple of millions added to his bank account. He did it a couple of times with doge, and now with kekius. I’m not smart enough to follow the money for crypto coins, but I’m sure someone could identify one or more whale accounts with suspicious buying and selling moments for these coins as Musk’s secret little money factories. (Or the creation of a couple of thousands of smaller accounts, if he really wanted to conceal his tracks)
The richest person in the world, folks. If most will-paid professionals lost 99% of their money, they would essentially be back to zero. If Musk lost 99% of his money, he would still be one of the world’s billionaires.
He would have thousands of millions of dollars.
Before or after the 99% loss, he could finance his daily life with cheap loans wherever needed. There would be no real effect on his personal life, just on how his professional life and big-boy money score affected his ego.
And yet he fucks around with scamming random followers out of their crypto pennies. That’s hire you know he’s sick or sadistic or both.
