Tesla is becoming a partisan brand – losing support from Democrats and gaining support from Republicans, according to a poll.
Leaders of large companies selling consumer products, such as automakers and technology companies, generally refrain from showing direct support for a political party, particularly in the United States.
Due to the polarizing nature of politics in the United States and its two-party system, it is best to steer clear of definitive statements of support one way or the other, as you risk alienating a large part of the population.
That’s why it was so surprising to see Elon Musk tell his more than 100 million Twitter followers to vote Republican in the midterm elections last month and go so far as to call the Democratic Party the ” part of hate”.
Regardless of your political affiliation, from a business perspective as an executive of a company selling consumer products, it was a questionable decision, and the impact is starting to be felt.
A Morning Consult survey reported by the the wall street journal tracked shifts in opinion about Tesla from people with different political affiliations. This shows that the number of Democrats with a positive view of Tesla has dropped significantly, while it’s up for self-proclaimed Republicans:
Tesla’s net preference among self-declared Democrats in the United States has fallen to an average of 10.4% this month through Nov. 27, from an average of 24.8% in October, according to Morning Consult. It rose to 26.5% from 20% among self-proclaimed Republicans over the same period.
Jordan Marlatt, technical analyst at Morning Consult, went so far as to say that Tesla is becoming a partisan brand:
It looks like Tesla is on its way to becoming a partisan brand.
Another YouGov survey shows that Tesla’s popularity has declined over the past year and recently fell below 50%:
The YouGov survey also tracks opinions from different political affiliations and found that self-styled liberals now view Tesla more negatively than conservatives, although conservatives also have a negative view of Tesla on average.
Electrek’s Grasp
Quite the opposite since I still clearly remember when many Republicans said that Tesla and Musk are just hungry for government subsidies.
On the contrary, it shows how much trouble people have with separating Tesla and Elon Musk, because Tesla itself hasn’t become more political lately. Musk clearly has, though.
Some people actually think it’s on purpose, that Tesla has exhausted its left-wing potential customer base, and that Musk is going after Republicans, but I don’t buy that theory.
Musk has in fact repeatedly said that Democrats being mean to him pushed him to the right:
Obviously, there could be other factors at play, but this seems to be one of them. Is it worth it if it affects Tesla in this way? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below, but don’t get political and stay respectful. We are talking here about the impact of Musk’s politics on Tesla. Not which side is better.
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