For fairness: Tesla is not for sale. Even Musk must face the negative aspects of political engagement
The car brand Tesla, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has undoubtedly become the flagship of electromobility. However, the radical entry of the car manufacturer's owner into American politics alongside Donald Trump, spiced up with flirtation with fascism, does not suit many customers on the market. After all, in the market, buyers often make decisions based on their own emotions. But politics often evokes negative feelings, which the global oligarch Musk will have to deal with.
Economists like to swear by mathematical calculations and statistics, which comes in handy, but human behavior cannot be stuffed into a calculator. This also applies to the market situation. Marketers like to attack human emotions in order to ingratiate themselves with the promoted products into the favor of consumers and play into their emotional side with their goods.
However, the same applies in reverse. The latest example is Tesla cars. For many years, this was a very specific brand, whose success was also contributed by the unorthodox owner Elon Musk. Emotions associated with his technological visionariness aroused and still arouse positive emotions in many people. For these reasons, many people bought a Tesla, which forms a category of its own among electric cars.
Jokes instead of sales
However, the glory of the richest men went to their heads, which is really not surprising. At the peak moments of triumphalism, when his fostered candidate for the President of the USA won, he decided to show that he could openly hail on stage. There is still speculation as to whether this was a sincere endorsement of a monstrous ideology or whether the eccentric billionaire just wanted to provoke.
He may have wanted to show everyone that he is now at the helm and no one will stop him. But the whole American republicanism works on mutual braking. And so the Musk/Trump duo began to slow down immediately by judges, which they began to complain about in the spirit of an ideology glorified by affective right-hand raising.
Many people do not like the fashion pretense, although it may not have been fully thought through. Although even opponents must suffer Trump in the White House, they do not have to support his sidekick by buying his products and they will not do it. The revolt against Tesla cars is attracting more and more attention. In the streets of American cities, we find a poster that connects the political elite with the symbolism of electric cars (car intro photo), the Polish government encourages a boycott of these products and the internet is beginning to fill up with jokes on this topic.
"Sales of Tesla will improve after all with the introduction of the new Model Y, queues are already forming..."
David Soukup, who has been promoting electromobility on the network for a long time, comments sarcastically on a photo of police in front of the car company's headquarters at X. However, the queue is formed by the police, as opponents of Musk's political activities regularly protest at the site.
Will money stay at the top for Musk?
Tesla is doing the worst in Germany. In the country where green politics has a very strong voice, Tesla's car sales fell by 76%. In other European countries, the drops vary between 30-60%. It should be noted that Musk openly supported the AfD party here. Its representatives are pro-Russian not only in their rhetoric, but many have received money from Russia and are in the sights of the German secret services, due to neo-Nazi tendencies.
Support for this political trend is too much even for green electromobility enthusiasts. Even though the AfD enjoys twenty percent support from the last elections, it's hard to imagine that the voters of this party are big fans of buying electric cars.
The shares of Tesla are rapidly plummeting along with other American tech giants. The CEO of one of the largest, Marc Zuckerberg, also willingly supported elected Trump with his millions in the hope of sweeping the legislation. But lovers of democracy do not disregard the intertwining of politics and business, once known as corruption, not only once every 4 years at election urns, but also when they are spending their wallets.
So we may see if the owner of Tesla values his own ego more, or the development of his business. Money therefore has a unique opportunity to show whether it comes first for the aforementioned leading billionaires.
Sources: author's text, commentary, ČT, X.com
