“There was this sort of aura round Elon Musk that he might do no fallacious,” mentioned Taylor Ogan, a hedge fund supervisor and YouTube presence who has owned three Teslas. “That has lastly caught up with him.”
Joya Banerjee, a lead adviser centered on gender-based violence on the humanitarian group CARE in Washington, checked out a Tesla when she was searching for an electrical automobile final yr. However even earlier than Mr. Musk purchased Twitter, she was delay by what she perceived as his ego, sexism and extreme energy.
“I couldn’t see my cash going to his C.E.O. wage,” she mentioned. Ms. Banerjee purchased a Ford Mustang Mach-E as a substitute.
Kenneth Holecko, a retired authorities human relations supervisor who lives in Virginia and owns a Tesla, mentioned Mr. Musk’s statements about Dr. Fauci and different matters added to issues he had in regards to the firm’s credibility on issues like security of its autonomous driving software program. “I’m not going to exit and promote my Tesla due to what’s happening with Twitter,” Mr. Holecko mentioned, “however I might by no means purchase one other Tesla.”
Survey information point out that Mr. Musk’s habits has damage Tesla’s model amongst liberals, the group almost certainly to purchase electrical automobiles. Tesla’s web favorability score — the quantity of people that view the corporate positively minus these with a adverse view — plummeted to 10 share factors in November from 31 share factors at the start of the yr, in accordance with Morning Seek the advice of, a analysis agency.
Tesla’s web favorability score amongst Republicans has improved barely, to 27 share factors in November from 21 share factors in August, as Mr. Musk adopted some conservative speaking factors, in accordance with the agency’s analysis. However there are unlikely to be sufficient new Republican Tesla followers to compensate for disaffected Democrats, mentioned Jordan Marlatt, an analyst at Morning Seek the advice of.
“More and more, Tesla is turning into a reasonably partisan model and that would have fairly severe implications for Tesla sooner or later,” Mr. Marlatt mentioned.