Elon Musk has gone from an electric vehicle evangelist popular among liberal EV buyers to a hero of President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, splitting Tesla’s brand image along partisan lines, a new survey says.

“He’s more popular with gasoline ICE drivers than with EV drivers. It’s kind of unbelievable,” said Mike Murphy, CEO of American EV Jobs Alliance, which released the poll Feb. 6. “The more you think climate change counts, the more you hate Elon,” the Republican strategist said.

Musk had a 42 percent favorability rating from gasoline vehicle owners versus 37 percent unfavorable, the survey said. Pickup owners were the top Musk fans at 46 percent. But EV drivers rated Musk the other way around at just 35 percent positive and 42 percent negative.

Musk’s partisan shift from “EV Jesus” to “MAGA god” is hurting Tesla’s brand image in top EV markets such as California, Murphy said. “Musk has more of a MAGA identity than an electric car identity. He’s a nightmare for the Tesla chief marketing officer because he’s now in the way.”

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In extreme examples, Musk detractors have been defacing Tesla vehicles and making obscene gestures at Tesla drivers in multiple states. KSBW-TV in central California reported Feb. 12 that flyers were left on Teslas in four cities threatening to vandalize the vehicles because of Musk.

The polarization of attitudes toward the billionaire entrepreneur reflects the political divide in the country, with 76 percent of Democratic voters in November expressing an unfavorable opinion of the Tesla CEO and 74 percent of Republican voters rating him favorably, the survey said.

While Republicans are slowly warming to electric vehicles, Democrats are nearly twice as likely to be “seriously interested in buying an EV” at 27 percent of survey respondents versus 15 percent for Republicans. That’s one likely reason Tesla sales are struggling, Murphy said.

New Tesla U.S. registrations fell 4.8 percent last year compared with 2023 as registrations for other brands’ EVs grew 31 percent, according to S&P Global Mobility. In California, new Tesla registrations fell 11 percent last year as competitors’ EVs surged 25 percent. The data is only for full EVs, not hybrids.

How other automakers fared

The polarization of Tesla’s brand image is unusual among U.S. consumers, who generally don’t split along partisan lines when rating automakers.

While brands such as Ford and Toyota received mostly favorable ratings from across the political spectrum, nearly 60 percent of Democratic voters had a negative view of Tesla and about two-thirds of Republicans had a favorable view, the survey said.

“Among the 20 percent of total respondents saying they were seriously interested in buying an EV in the next year or so, Tesla’s favorable/unfavorable rating was by far the worst of the brands tested,” the survey said.

Toyota led brand preferences among future EV buyers with a 94 percent favorable rating versus just 6 percent unfavorable. In contrast, 63 percent of future EV buyers saw Tesla favorably and 37 percent viewed the brand unfavorably, the survey showed.

In theory, Musk could leverage his likability with Make America Great Again followers, turning traditional EV skeptics into adopters of the new technology, but that hasn’t happened yet, Murphy said.

“He could sell EVs to Republicans, but I don’t think he even cares about cars anymore,” Murphy said. “I think he’s on to robots and AI and self-driving taxis.” Murphy’s nonprofit group is focused on ending the partisan divide over EV adoption.

Musk said on an earnings call in January that robotaxis and humanoid robots are more important to Tesla’s future than selling cars to consumers.

Even in Texas, where voters supported Trump by a hefty margin in November, Tesla’s relatively modest sales fell last year. Tesla registrations dropped 6.2 percent in the state compared with 2023, S&P Global Mobility said.

Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Texas from California in late 2021 as his political leanings shifted and the automaker opened a new plant near Austin. Musk, a top contributor to the Trump campaign last year, has said he voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.

To be sure, Tesla was still the leader for battery-electric vehicle sales in the U.S. last year with a 48 percent market share. But that was down 8 percentage points from a year earlier, S&P Global Mobility said. The automaker plans to launch a new affordable model in the first half of this year.

“We are staying focused on maximizing volumes,” Musk said on the January earnings call. Global fourth-quarter sales set a record despite a drop in full-year deliveries. “We made many critical investments in 2024 in manufacturing, AI and robotics that will bear immense fruit in the future.”

American EV Jobs Alliance said 600 voters were included in the survey, which was taken shortly after the November election. Respondents had family incomes of $50,000 per year or higher, and the poll was designed to capture the new- and used-vehicle market, it said.