Tesla's brand loyalty collapsed after Musk backed Trump, shows data

Business Standard

3 days ago

Tesla for years had more repeat US customers than any other major automotive brand but its loyalty has plunged since CEO Elon Musk endorsed President Donald Trump last summer, according to data from research firm S&P Global Mobility shared exclusively with Reuters.
The data, which has not been previously reported, shows Tesla customer loyalty peaked in June 2024, when 73 per cent of Tesla-owning households in the market for a new car bought another Tesla, according to an S&P analysis of vehicle-registration data in all 50 states.
That industry-leading brand loyalty rate started to nosedive in July, that data showed, when Musk endorsed Trump following an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on the Republican nominee.
The rate bottomed out at 49.9 per cent last March, just below the industry average, after Musk launched Trump budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency in January and started firing thousands of government workers.
Tesla's US loyalty rate has since ticked back up to 57.4 per cent in May, the most recent month the S&P data is available, putting it back above the industry average and about the same as Toyota but behind Chevrolet and Ford.
S&P analyst Tom Libby called it "unprecedented" to see the runaway leader in customer loyalty fall so quickly to industry-average levels. "I've never seen this rapid of a decline in such a short period of time," he said.
Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
The timing of Tesla's plunging brand loyalty suggests the CEO's involvement in politics turned off customers in the EV pioneer's eco-conscious customer base, some analysts said. "If they have Democratic leanings, then perhaps they consider other brands in addition to Tesla," said Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar.
Tesla's aging model lineup also faces stiffer competition from an array of EVs from legacy automakers including General Motors, Hyundai and BMW. The only new model Tesla has released since 2020, its triangular Cybertruck, has proved a flop despite Musk prediction of hundreds of thousands of annual sales.
On an April earnings call, Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja singled out "the negative impact of vandalism and unwarranted hostility towards our brand and people," but also said there were "several weeks of lost production" when the company retooled factories to produce a refreshed version of its top-selling Model Y.
Musk on the April call said that "absent macro issues, we don't see any reduction in demand."
Tesla vehicle sales overall are falling globally and have declined 8 per cent in the United States the first five months of 2025, according to S&P. Sales fell 33 per cent over the first six months of the year in Europe, where public backlash to Musk politicking has been particularly fierce.
Musk's increased political activism was "very bad timing" for Tesla, said Garrett Nelson, an analyst who tracks the EV maker at CFRA Research, because it came exactly as the company faced heightened competition from Chinese EV makers and other traditional automakers. He said his top concerns for Tesla are its loss of market share and "what can be done to repair the brand damage."
LOYALTY NOSEDIVE
Tesla remains the US electric-vehicle sales leader but has seen its dominance erode as Musk last year delved into politics and focused Tesla more on developing self-driving technology than on new affordable models for human drivers.
Customer loyalty is a closely watched auto-industry metric because it is “much more expensive� to take new customers from competitors than to retain existing ones, said S&P Libby.
S&P offers some of the most detailed industry data on automotive purchases because it analyzes vehicle registration data from all 50 states on a household-by-household basis.
Unlike survey data, it follows actual vehicle transactions to track how consumers migrate among brands and models.
From the fourth quarter of 2021 through the third quarter of last year, more than 60 per cent of Tesla-owning households bought another one for their next car purchase, the data show. Only one other brand Ford posted a quarterly loyalty rate exceeding 60 per cent during the period, and only once.
CUSTOMER DEFECTIONS
S&P data also examines another aspect of the automotive market: Which brands and models are taking customers away from others, and which ones are losing them?
Until recently, Tesla was in a different stratosphere than other automotive brands on this metric. For the four years prior to July 2024, Tesla, on average, acquired nearly five new households for every one it lost to another brand.
No other brand from a major automaker was even close: Hyundai's luxury Genesis brand was the next best, acquiring on average 2.8 households for every one it lost, followed by Kia and Hyundai, which acquired on average 1.5 and 1.4 households, respectively, for every one they lost. Ford, Toyota and Honda lost more households on average than they gained during that period.
Tesla average inflow of customers started to decline in July 2024 along with its loyalty rate. Since February, Tesla has been gaining fewer than two households for every one it loses to the rest of the industry, its lowest level ever, according to the data.
The data shows clearly that the net migration to Tesla is slowing, Libby said.
Brands that now attract more Tesla customers than they lose to Tesla include Rivian, Polestar, Porsche and Cadillac, the data show.
Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Tesla investor Zacks Investment Management, said he isn't concerned about Tesla long-term earnings because he expects enormous profits from its plans to operate robotaxis and license self-driving technology to other automakers.
Tesla launched a small test of robotaxis in Austin in June, giving rides to hand-picked fans and Internet personalities but the service isn't available to the general public. If Tesla succeeds in expanding the technology, Mulberry said, “there a case to be made that Tesla doesn need to sell cars and trucks anymore.