I just wrote about some disappointments I have with Democrats regarding EV perceptions and EV adoption in the United States. But, based on the same new study, there’s clearly some bad news for Republicans who are also Tesla and EV fans.
As Elon Musk alienated, angered, disappointed, and horrified Democrats in the past year, I think everyone expected that Tesla sales to Democrats would decline. However, many Tesla fans/shareholders hoped that at least as many Republicans would be flipped and would join the Tesla market. Historically, Democrats have been more likely to buy EVs, so this could be an actual opportunity. In fact, some fans (or superfans) thought this was actually brilliant 4D chess from Elon Musk and it was all about expanding the Tesla market and selling more EVs. If only….
Sales reports have shown us that Tesla definitely isn’t selling more cars. It’s selling a lot less. Now, this new study confirms what presumably happened with Elon Musk getting into politics in an extreme way. He convinced Democrats to stop buying Teslas, but he didn’t convince many more Republicans to start buying them. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, it seems he barely moved the needle on convincing more conservatives to be open to buying an EV.
Looking at that first chart from August 2023, conservative interest in buying an EV was almost the same as it was in March 2025. Data on Tesla specifically didn’t pop in until November 2023. The willingness among conservatives to buy a Tesla then is again not much different from the willingness among conservatives to buy a Tesla in March 2025.
Meanwhile … with almost no benefit in terms of Republican consumer interest and a big hit in Democrat consumer interest, various subsidies for electric cars have been killed, support for EV charging infrastructure has been kneecapped, fuel economy standards are being slashed, the US government is attacking states’ rights to require lower CO2 emissions from automakers, oil companies are being further subsidized, and tariffs are being put on key components of electric vehicles (and cars in general). Winning?
Also, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have had a huge falling out, so the idea that the Trump administration will be kinder and looser on Tesla with regards to self-driving tech and other matters is something that is yet to be proven.
I don’t see how anyone could conclude that Elon Musk getting into far right-wing politics has been a good thing for Tesla. Instead, it seems to have been disastrously bad.
To end, let me just note one reason that I always thought Tesla wouldn’t get a comparable rise in consumer demand from Republicans as it would get a drop from Democrats. When Elon Musk was “apolitical,” anyone who had interest in EVs and new tech like Tesla was bringing to market could enjoy and love the brand, either not caring what Musk’s politics were or not being confronted with them. Getting super political, he was obviously going to drive some people away from the brand, but that didn’t mean that he was going to get people interested in new tech, EVs, and such who weren’t already naturally interested in those things. Someone who mostly cares about the next college football game or golfing isn’t going to all of a sudden become a techie. That just didn’t make much sense, beyond a limited impact. And this recent study appears to be proving that. Just wait and see what happens if Musk and Trump keep attacking each other….
I understand why Republican Tesla fans would have hoped and wished and maybe even strongly believed it would be different. But, as we can see, it was just a horrible, idiotic decision — from a Tesla angle at the very least — for Elon Musk to go 100% “MAGA.”
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