Is this the start of a “Tesla shame” (shame of owning a Tesla)? A few days ago, an anti-Tesla tweet from Alyssa Milano went viral. The American actress announces that she has abandoned her Tesla for an electric Volkswagen.
The actress points to the strategy of Elon Musk who decided to restore the accounts of Donald Trump and several of his followers on Twitter, accounts deleted after the attack on the Capitol in 2020.
If many messages in response have joked about the Nazi origin of Volkswagen, the “attack on Tesla” in Milan seems to have lasted for a few months.
popularity drop
Back in August, an article on the US website Axios reported a series of rudeness suffered at the wheel by Tesla drivers in Iowa. Obscene gestures, blocking traffic to access charging stations, truck fish tails… The The Iowa Tesla Owners Facebook account reports dozens of intimidations against Tesla owners.
The fault lies with the personality of the head of the American manufacturer of electric vehicles. Very active on social networks, provocative and divisive, Elon Musk has seen his image deteriorate in public opinion, especially since the soap opera taking over Twitter.
A survey conducted in July in the United States by Civic Science reported 54% negative opinions on Elon Musk’s personality compared to 54% positive opinions three months earlier in April.
Other similar studies and surveys confirm this deterioration in the image of the media boss himself.
The newspaper The Guardian who interviewed Tesla owners collected similar testimonials.
Intimidations that would even become road harassment, according to some testimonies. Like Theresa Ramsdell, originally from Bellevue, Washington.
At the confluence of all hates
Tesla drivers would be at the confluence of two contradictory streams of hate. Previously reviled by conservatives who judged electric car owners as “dumb” Democratic Party voters, they would now be rebuked by those in the opposite camp, judging Elon Musk to be pandering to Donald Trump.
“They were the subject of road rage because they represented the environment and were seen as the embodiment of this culture war,” he continues. But now some people on the left have a knee-jerk reaction because Elon Musk took this troubling political shift right, like that. who are now throwing the same bricks”.
After having contributed to the resounding success of Tesla, has Elon Musk’s divisive personality become a handicap for the development of the brand? For now, the manufacturer’s board of directors has turned its back on him and continues to support the capricious capo. Two weeks ago, the trustees took one another to the front of a Delaware court to defend the staggering $56 billion in compensation awarded to Elon Musk to ensure his loyalty.
Because for now, vehicle sales do not seem to suffer from the controversial outbursts of the Tesla CEO. With more than 908,000 Tesla delivered in the first three quarters, the manufacturer has already done almost as well as it has in all of 2021 (935,000 vehicles), which was already a record year.
The only downside is that the manufacturer’s stock price has fallen considerably in recent months. The share’s value has more than halved since the start of the year and the market capitalization, which hit $1.25 billion in January, has since fallen to less than $580 billion.
Source: BFM TV
