- Americans are viewing Tesla in an increasingly negative light, according to an annual survey. Even scandal-hit UnitedHealth Group and the U.K. oil company behind the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe are viewed in a better light.
Evidence is mounting that Elon Musk, widely viewed as the most successful entrepreneur of his generation, is inflicting serious damage on the image of his companies.
On Tuesday, a new Axios Harris annual reputation poll showed that Tesla has continued to fall in the eyes of Americans ever since Musk waded full-on into the nation’s hyper-partisan political debate with the acquisition of Twitter.
Prior to the $44 billion deal, the electric vehicle manufacturer came in eighth place in the reputation ranking of America’s 100 most visible companies in 2021. Last year, however, it dropped to 63rd, and now it is almost at the very bottom, at 95th.
Since the survey asks respondents to rank which companies have the best reputation today based on nine separate criteria and which have the worst, Tesla’s score suggests that Americans familiar with the company view it negatively.
Among all the companies that scored better are BP, the company behind the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster, and Volkswagen, which cheated diesel emission tests for years before being caught. Even UnitedHealth Group, a company engulfed by criticism over its alleged profits-over-health-care practices, scored higher.
Musk’s EV maker went on to receive terrible marks in nearly every one of the nine categories, save for products and services. It scored 98th in “Trust” and “Ethics,” 99th in “Citizenship,” and dead last in “Character.”
In fact, all three of Musk’s most visible companies scored poorly. SpaceX came in 86th, but X (formerly Twitter) languished in 98th. The common thread linking them all is Musk.
Musk increasingly deemed toxic
“He became political kryptonite,” CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten said on Wednesday, citing Musk’s collapse in net favorability, according to Ipsos polling.
At the heart of it has been his abrasive politics: labeling Social Security one huge Ponzi scheme; leading his followers in an online attack against the independent judiciary; and threatening to fund primary challenges against any Republican who dares defy President Trump.
His politics haven’t stopped at the U.S. border, either. He’s supported Europe’s far-right parties, like the AfD, and promoted individuals like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a.k.a. Tommy Robinson, deemed too radical even by Trump ally Nigel Farage’s standards.
Speaking about his emphatic stiff-armed salute at Trump’s inauguration, which drew comparisons with Europe’s 1930s fascists, Musk claimed shock at the ensuing blowback.
“Every politician, any public speaker who’s spoken for any length of time has made the exact same gesture,” he claimed on Tuesday.
Tesla’s fall is more pronounced than at other Musk companies
Neither SpaceX nor X witnessed such a precipitous fall from grace in the Axios Harris poll as Tesla, however.
This could indicate that additional factors are at play behind its collapse in ranking. For example, most of its cars are five to 12 years old and look very stale when compared against the current crop of EVs.
The only new Tesla model of late is the Cybertruck, which has been widely panned for its polarizing design, shoddy engineering, eight recalls overseen by the NHTSA, and critical reviews that cite its cast aluminum frame as a risk point for catastrophic mechanical failure when towing. It has already been overtaken in sales by the Ford F-150 Lightning this year.
Tesla did not respond to a request by Fortune for comment, but Musk has denied Tesla is suffering from any secular drop in demand resulting from his behavior.
Instead, he has blamed it on overall macro uncertainty and a refresh of its bestselling Model Y.
The Axios Harris poll uses a framework in place since 1999 to judge the reputations of companies that Americans care most about. The three-step process involves polling thousands of people to find out their opinions on which companies—both domestic and foreign—are the best and the worst. Polling began on Jan. 22 and concluded on May 16.
