Tesla stock sinks as Musk-Trump fight explodes

Lily Jamali
North America Technology Correspondent

Elon Musk’s foray into right-wing politics cost Tesla dearly at the start of the Trump administration.

Protests, dubbed #TeslaTakedown, have played out across the country most weekends since Trump took office, and Tesla sales have plunged.

“He should not be deciding the fate of our democracy by disassembling our government piece by piece. It’s not right,” protestor Linda Koistinen told me at a demonstration outside a Berkeley, California Tesla dealership in February.

Koistinen said she wanted to make a “visible stand” against Musk personally.

Now, Musk’s stunning spat with Trump may actually help the Tesla brand, according to Patrick Moorhead, chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

“We’re a very forgiving country,” Moorhead says in a telephone interview.

“These things take time,” he acknowledges, but “it’s not unprecedented”.

Earlier this week, in an interview, veteran tech reporter and analyst Kara Swisher likened Musk’s personal brand to that of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

She said Gates was once regarded as “the Darth Vader of Silicon Valley” because of his “arrogant and rude” personality.

Today, despite his flaws, Gates has largely rehabilitated his image.

“He learned. He grew up. People can change,” Swisher told me, even as she acknowledged that Musk is “clearly troubled.”

Whether that will draw prospective Tesla buyers back to the brand is another story.