Was, because while Levitt still loved his Teslas, he’s soured on Musk.(pic)
NEW YORK: Dennis Levitt got his first Tesla, a blue Model S, in 2013, and loved it. “It was so much better than any car I’ve ever driven,” the 73-year-old self-storage company executive says.
He bought into the brand as well as Elon Musk, Tesla Inc’s charismatic chief executive officer (CEO), purchasing another Model S the following year and driving the first one across the country.
In 2016, he stood in line at a showroom near his suburban Los Angeles home to be one of the first to order two Model 3s – one for himself, the other for his wife.
“I was a total Musk fanboy,” Levitt said.
Was, because while Levitt still loved his Teslas, he’s soured on Musk.
“Over time, his public statements have really come to bother me,” Levitt said, citing the CEO’s spats with US president Joe Biden, among others. “He acts like a seven-year-old.”
Before it was reported Musk had an affair with Sergey Brin’s wife, which he’s denied; before his slipshod deal, then no-deal, to acquire Twitter Inc; before the revelation he fathered twins with an executive at his brain-interface startup Neuralink; and before SpaceX fired employees who called him “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment”, Musk’s behaviour was putting off prospective customers and perturbing some Tesla owners.
Further, his daughter changed her name and legal gender after his history of mocking pronouns, and an article said SpaceX paid an employee US$250,000 (RM1.11mil) to settle a claim he sexually harassed her, allegations he’s called untrue.
The trends have shown up in one consumer survey and market research report after another: Tesla commands high brand awareness, consideration and loyalty, and customers are mostly delighted by its cars. Musk’s antics, on the other hand? They could do without.
Creative Strategies, a California-based customer-experience measurer, mentioned owner frustration with Musk in a study it published in April. A year earlier, research firm Escalent found Musk was the most negative aspect of the Tesla brand among electric-vehicle (EV) owners surveyed.
“We hear from Tesla owners who will say, ‘Look, I love my vehicle, but I really wish I didn’t have to respond to my friends and family about his latest tweet,’” said Mike Dovorany, who spoke with thousands of EV owners and potential buyers during his two years working in Escalent’s automotive and mobility group.
Tesla has so far had no trouble growing its way through Musk’s many controversies.
The dip in vehicle deliveries the company reported last quarter was its first sequential decline since early 2020 and largely had to do with Covid lockdowns in Shanghai forcing its most productive factory to shut for weeks.
Competitors that have been chasing the company for a decade may still be years away from catching up in the EV sales ranks.
Musk’s star power, built in no small part by his activity on Twitter – the same forum where he’s become such a lightning rod – has contributed immensely to Tesla, especially since it’s shunned traditional advertising.
His steady stream of online banter, punctuated with the occasional grandiose announcement or stunt (like shooting a Roadster into space) keeps Tesla in the headlines.
During the company’s earlier days, the trolling and glib comments were a feature, not a bug.
They allowed Musk to shape media coverage and made him the ringleader for Tesla’s legion of very-online fans.
But after making Tesla and himself so synonymous with one another, Musk has waded into political conflicts, attempted to buy one of the world’s most influential social media platforms and struggled to bat back unflattering coverage of his personal life, putting the company’s increasingly valuable brand at risk.
Jerry James Stone, a 48-year-old chef in Sacramento, California, who teaches his 219,000 YouTube channel subscribers how to make vegan and vegetarian meals, drives a Volkswagen Beetle convertible and plans to go electric with his next car.
He isn’t sure yet which model, but certain it won’t be a Tesla. “Musk has just soiled that brand for me so much that I don’t even think I would take one if I won one,” Stone said.
“You have this guy who’s the richest dude in the world, who has this huge megaphone, and he uses it to call somebody a pedophile who’s not, or to fat-shame people, all these things that are just kind of gross.”
According to Strategic Vision, a US research firm that consults auto companies, some 39% of car buyers said they wouldn’t consider a Tesla. — Bloomberg
