Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris June 16, 2023. — Reuters picSAN FRANCISCO, April 1 — The ranks of would-be Tesla buyers in the United States are shrinking, according to a survey by market intelligence firm Caliber, which attributed the drop in part to CEO Elon Musk’s polarising persona.
Reuters spoke to five marketing, polling and car experts who said controversies surrounding Musk’s increasingly right-wing politics and public statements are weighing on Tesla’s brand and demand. “The EV slowdown is shaping up to be a Tesla slowdown,” Cox analyst Stephanie Valdez Streaty said during a conference call Thursday.
When asked by an investor during a January 2023 conference call if his political comments were hurting Tesla’s brand and sales, Musk said he was “reasonably popular,” referring to his then 127 million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter.