Tesla's brand loyalty collapsed after Musk backed Trump, data shows

Tesla for years had more repeat US customers than any other major automotive brand but its loyalty has plunged since CEO Elon Musk endorsed President Donald Trump last summer, according to data from research firm S&P Global Mobility shared exclusively with Reuters.

The data, which has not been previously reported, shows Tesla's customer loyalty peaked in June 2024, when 73 percent of Tesla-owning households in the market for a new car bought another Tesla, according to an S&P analysis of vehicle-registration data in all 50 states.

That industry-leading brand loyalty rate started to nosedive in July, that data showed, when Musk endorsed Trump following an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on the Republican nominee.

The rate bottomed out at 49.9 percent last March, just below the industry average, after Musk launched Trump's budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency in January and started firing thousands of government workers.

Tesla's US loyalty rate has since ticked back up to 57.4 percent in May, the most recent month the S&P data is available, putting it back above the industry average and about the same as Toyota but behind Chevrolet and Ford.

S&P analyst Tom Libby called it "unprecedented" to see the runaway leader in customer loyalty fall so quickly to industry-average levels. "I've never seen this rapid of a decline in such a short period of time," he said.

Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

On Monday, Tesla granted Musk 96 million shares worth about $29 billion, a move aimed at keeping the billionaire entrepreneur at the helm as he fights a court ruling that voided his original pay deal for being unfair to shareholders.

The timing of Tesla's plunging brand loyalty suggests the CEO's involvement in politics turned off customers in the EV pioneer's eco-conscious customer base, some analysts said. "If they have Democratic leanings, then perhaps they consider other brands in addition to Tesla," said Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar.

Tesla's aging model lineup also faces stiffer competition from an array of EVs from legacy automakers including General Motors, Hyundai and BMW. The only new model Tesla has released since 2020, its triangular Cybertruck, has proved a flop despite Musk's prediction of hundreds of thousands of annual sales.

On an April earnings call, Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja singled out "the negative impact of vandalism and unwarranted hostility towards our brand and people," but also said there were "several weeks of lost production" when the company retooled factories to produce a refreshed version of its top-selling Model Y.

Musk on the April call said that "absent macro issues, we don't see any reduction in demand."

Tesla vehicle sales overall are falling globally and have declined 8 percent in the United States the first five months of 2025, according to S&P. Sales fell 33 percent over the first six months of the year in Europe, where public backlash to Musk's politicking has been particularly fierce.