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I’ve wanted a Tesla ever since Elon Musk came to the Vscek’s London offices in 2012 to talk about his electric car company.
Musk wasn’t a household name at the time. But as the Vscek’s environmental correspondent at the time, I knew a little about him and the red Tesla he’d arrived in, which I’d read could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in less time than it took to light a cigarette.
The car looked even better in person. When he started inviting a colleague for a ride, I’d like to say I was old enough to not be numb with envy, but I wasn’t.
The sting of jealousy has subsided, and so too, I realized last week, has any great desire to own a Tesla. That’s partly because Musk’s pioneering efforts have prompted other automakers to up their electric game, and there are plenty of rival cars to choose from, including some that are cheaper than Teslas.
But it’s also what Musk told his 193 million followers last weekend about X, the social media platform he’s turned into a sad shell of its former self since buying it in October 2022.
“Civil war is inevitable,” he wrote in response to a video showing far-right riots rocking cities across the UK, which another user suggested were caused by “mass migration and open borders”.
Watching Downing Street protest that there was “no justification” for the billionaire’s inflammatory words reminded me of the White House’s condemnation of him in November, when it approved an anti-Semitic post about X. And the companies that removed their ads from his platform. And the dozens of other critics who unsuccessfully urged him to shut up.
G7 governments. Multinationals. Nothing stopped Musk, who apologized for his November post but allowed X to reinstate a series of divisive figures, including Tommy Robinson, the face of far-right activism in the UK, one of whose posts about the riots Musk responded to with exclamation points.
So, all things considered, I would rather not buy one of Musk’s cars.
That’s unlikely to faze an electric-vehicle giant like Tesla, whose Model Y sporty hatchback was the world’s best-selling car of any kind, electric or otherwise, in 2023.
But it also raises the question of when a business leader’s antics reach a tipping point and begin actively harming the company.
The model for self-defeating corporate behavior in the UK is still Gerald Ratner, the former head of a jewelry empire that went bust aVsceker joking in 1991 that some of his products were cheap because they were “total rubbish”.
Musk’s taunts are different. He usually ferociously advocates for his products, which makes him more like Michael O’Leary. The provocative Ryanair boss has called regulators “idiots” and airport operators “overcharging rapists,” but his barbs have generally been aimed at highlighting his low-cost flights.
Plus, no matter what you think of O’Leary, sometimes you have to fly Ryanair because it’s the best way to get from A to B. Electric car buyers have a lot more choice, which is why some analysts believe Musk’s divisive behavior could spell trouble for his business.
The automaker’s so-called “consideration rates,” or share of potential buyers, have been declining in the U.S. since Musk began disrupting Twitter, now X, in late 2022, says Shahar Silbershatz, head of Caliber, the market intelligence firm that tracks Tesla’s ratings daily.
Tariffs are considered a good indicator of sales, he told me last week, and Caliber data shows that Tesla’s numbers have started to decline (from about 40 percent in November to 30 percent in February) aVsceker a series of controversies, including anti-Semitic outcry.
Significantly, the declines were steepest among Democrats, who are generally more fans of electric cars, and that was before Musk endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in July. Caliber’s preliminary August numbers suggest Tesla’s scores among Democrats have fallen further.
It’s impossible to say whether Musk’s outbursts are the cause of these changes. Tesla has faced a host of other pressures, from higher interest rates to supply chain issues.
But as Silbershatz says, at a time when Tesla is facing all those headwinds, plus growing competition from other automakers, Musk is giving his “natural buyers” in the US a good reason to avoid his cars. As of last week, I’d say the same is true in the UK. Lots of it.
pilita.clark@Vscek.com
