
Tesla founder and X CEO Elon Musk has always been a free spirit, but in recent years the tech mogul has found himself increasingly comfortable with America’s political right. Once a critic of former President Donald Trump – a relationship that soured after the former president suggested that Musk would have “dropped to his knees” had he told him to during a meeting in the Oval Office – Musk is now a staunch defender of the Make America Great Again agenda. The CEO has even caused controversy in the United Kingdom after banning the United Kingdom’s government X account after it threatened international social media users with arrest for sharing video footage of riots in the country.
With all that being said, it might not come as a surprise for you to learn that Musk may be driving away a huge chunk of the EV (electric vehicle) target market.
In a piece for The Guardian, reporter Jasper Jolly argued that there are “signs” that Musk is becoming hugely unpopular with the demographic group most likely to purchase an electric vehicle from his company, Tesla.
“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?” Jolly writes.
In the piece, Jolly notes that a German pharmacy chain named Rossmann was one of the first companies to announce that it would no longer work with Tesla, citing Musk’s endorsement of the former president. He also quotes a senior executive from the television industry who said that while he “loves” his Tesla, he believes that Musk has made buying a Tesla a problem for customers who don’t support his politics.
“You’re clearly aligning with someone with some pretty horrific views,” the executive said. For that reason, the TV exec canceled his latest Tesla order.
Jolly cites a bunch of other people with similar concerns, but what we thought would be an interesting exercise is finding some of the things that Musk himself has said recently and analyzing whether he’s wrong to say them. It’s all a matter of personal opinion, of course – and there are plenty of CEOs out there who make blatantly political statements on their social media. The big difference here is that Musk is a classical liberal who found sanctuary among right-wing conservatives.
Polling Twitter About Resigning As CEO
This one might not be quite as controversial as endorsing Donald Trump – though, the fact that endorsing a major political candidate is considered controversial these days means that anything less than that can still be problematic.
In 2022, Musk raised eyebrows when he ran a poll on his newly-acquired social media platform – now named “X” – asking users whether they believe that he should step down as CEO of the company. Musk repeatedly promised that he would respect the wishes of the platform’s users, so when 57.5% of respondents said that he should leave, he initially brushed it off as one big joke. Musk even joked that he might appoint his dog as CEO instead.
For some time, the public argued that Musk wasn’t serious in his leadership of the country – through in the months that followed, Musk eventually announced that he would be handing the reins to the platform’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino.
Preventing Ukrainian Attacks Against Russia
In 2023, Musk defended himself against accusations that his decision to disable Starlink satellite networks in Ukraine were part of an effort to help Russian forces. This story gets a little complicated and it’s certainly unfair for media outlets to accuse Musk of supporting Russia after providing so much free support in the form of Starlink satellites – but it’s one that still gets repeated a lot by critics of the tech CEO.
Musk defended his action by insisting that he did not want to be complicit in an act of war, and said that the Starlink satellites were given to Ukraine to assist with their defensive efforts and not to help with new offensives against Russian warships.
His Position on Pronouns
And this is where things get really sticky. Musk has wandered into pretty much every single heated political debate in recent years, and there is no debate more delicate than the ongoing pronouns battle.
Musk has repeatedly mocked the use of pronouns – something that some activists say is a matter of respect for gender-non-conforming people and that others argue is a form of compelled speech. Musk has previously suggested that his pronouns are “Prosecute/Fauci” – a double whammy that put him in the crosshairs of politicians and activists who Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and of those who support the gender-non-conforming movement.
Is Elon Musk In Trouble?
With this in mind, you have to ask…is Elon Musk really in trouble? Is his business at risk? Or does he say and do these things because he knows that the products he offers are so good that people will ultimately buy them?
That’s hard to say. Tesla had a strong second quarter in 2024, though the company does face some challenges. The EV company reported total revenues of $25.5 billion in quarter two this year, which exceeded the expectations of many analysts. On the flipside, however, Tesla’s stock faces pressure due to weaker profitability and concerns that the company cannot meet its growth expectations.
Musk may face long-term pressure if he continues this trend of saying things that split the country down the middle – but that also requires other companies to step up and offer products with the same features as his companies do. And in some instances, that’s like a tech company trying to beat Apple at its own game.
What do you think?