Tesla loses customer loyalty due to Musk support for Trump
To substantiate this thesis, market researcher S&P Global Mobility analysed registration data from all 50 US states. The analysis showed that in June 2024, an impressive 73 per cent of Tesla drivers in the US who had purchased a new car had once again opted for a Tesla.
However, since Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly announced his support for then-presidential candidate and now President Donald Trump last summer, customer loyalty has declined significantly. The turning point in Tesla’s customer loyalty came in July 2024, when Elon Musk said shortly after the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania that he had ‘fully supported’ Trump.
Musk’s support for the Republican came as a surprise to many people, as Musk, a former Barack Obama voter, had long been considered part of the Democratic camp. Shortly afterwards, Musk is said to have already intervened specifically in Trump’s election campaign and advised him to choose Ohio Senator JD Vance as his vice-presidential candidate.
Customer loyalty, as interpreted from registration data, fell to just 49.9 per cent by March this year, after Musk launched Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in January and laid off thousands of government employees.
S&P analyst Tom Libby told Reuters news agency that it was “unprecedented” for Tesla, previously the undisputed leader in customer loyalty, to fall so quickly to the industry average. “I’ve never seen this rapid of a decline in such a short period of time,” he said.
Partnership scares off voters
Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar, suspects that the decline in Tesla customer loyalty during the Musk-Trump camaraderie is due to the CEO’s political involvement scaring off the electric car pioneer’s environmentally conscious customers: “If they have Democratic leanings, then perhaps they consider other brands in addition to Tesla,” Goldstein added.
Tesla’s loyalty rate has recently risen again in the US and stood at 57.4 per cent in May, the last month for which S&P data is available. This is roughly on par with Toyota, but lower than Chevrolet or Ford. In addition, Musk and Trump severed their close ties at the end of May when he left DOGE, which could help boost customer loyalty again.
The industry had long puzzled over why Tesla’s delivery figures had fallen significantly recently, especially in Europe. In addition to CEO Elon Musk’s controversial support for Donald Trump, the outdated model range was also repeatedly cited as a reason. Most recently, former VW boss Herbert Diess said: “Tesla’s weakness is not primarily due to the political behaviour of its boss, but Tesla’s lead has also shrunk significantly in recent years due to the entry of the Chinese.” Tesla’s only new model since 2020 is the controversial Cybertruck, of which Elon Musk actually wanted to build 250,000 units per year. However, a recent recall showed that Tesla was only able to sell around 46,000 Cybertrucks between the start of production in November 2023 and February 2025.
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