Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has attracted much public attention for his behavior style of breaking the rules and not playing cards according to common sense. However, the billionaire's latest political comments about the United States and allegations of sexual harassment against him may damage Tesla's brand in the eyes of car owners and employees.
Last Thursday, musk denied a report on him by the US media business insider. The report said that in 2016, he sexually harassed flight attendants on a private plane. Musk said the person who made the accusation was a liar. The day before yesterday, musk said when talking about the dispute over the acquisition of twitter that he would now vote for the Republican Party of the United States, not the Democratic Party, and said that the Democratic Party was a "divided and hateful party".
Last week, Tesla was also excluded from the standard & Poor's 500 ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) index. The person in charge of the index said that this was due to racial discrimination within Tesla and accidents related to the vehicle itself. Musk said that such ratings around ESG were a "scam". He pointed out that while excluding Tesla, an electric vehicle company, the index increased oil and gas producers.
At present, Tesla has not responded to these situations.
Although musk has previously made headlines, such as calling a critic "giant baby" on twitter, the recent controversy has once again raised doubts and concerns about whether his outspoken style will damage affinity and whether his style will affect Tesla's sales, especially in California, because musk is so closely related to Tesla.
According to Experian, California is Tesla's largest market, accounting for nearly 40% of the company's U.S. retail registrations last year. According to the California Association of new car dealers, Tesla's sales in California have increased by nearly 70% this year and its share in the California stock car market has reached 6.5%.
Last Friday, #boycotttesla became a hot topic on twitter, with many people claiming to cancel their Tesla car orders.
Twitter user J Yeh claims to be a lawyer and has lived in many cities, including Los Angeles. "In the past, I appreciated his efforts to build a green enterprise and promote change in the field of energy utilization. But sadly, he is becoming a troll seeking attention and causing controversy. I no longer believe that he will focus on product quality and I will cancel Tesla's orders," she said
"You have lost a potential customer. Anyone who has read this please cancel your order," said ute Bauer, a twitter user from Germany
However, it is not yet possible to confirm whether Tesla has encountered the problem of some orders being cancelled.
Considering Tesla's strong performance, many institutional investors will support musk anyway. But that doesn't mean people won't feel depressed. "They did a lot of good things, but Musk's antics were disappointing. Having musk is both the best and the worst of Tesla," said Taylor Ogan, CEO of snow bull capital, which owns Tesla shares
An unnamed Tesla employee said he was disappointed that Musk's behavior outside Tesla seemed to be damaging Tesla's share price. "The company needs to take action to solve this problem," he said
On Friday, Tesla's share price fell nearly 9%, its market value shrank by about $66 billion, and its share price fell to its lowest level since last August. Analysts said Musk's acquisition of twitter could pose a "risk of distracting him". But musk assured the outside world on Thursday that he would always focus on Tesla.
John Smith, the former vice president of GM Group, who is responsible for global product planning, believes that if the public discussion focuses on sexual harassment allegations against musk rather than Tesla's products, the final result may have a "corrosive" effect on Tesla's brand. Jason stomel, founder of cadre, a talent brokerage company in the technology industry, said that employees of Tesla and SpaceX may also become "flustered and angry" because of Musk's anti democratic remarks, because employees of technology companies in California tend to be more liberal and support the Democratic Party.
However, on Thursday, NASA Director Bill Nelson said that Musk's SpaceX has a strong senior management team and the cooperation between NASA and SpaceX is very smooth. Currently, NASA relies on SpaceX to send astronauts into space.
However, musk still has many fans on the Internet. Twitter user @ jvega103 said he was a Republican who owned a Tesla car and had just registered to use Tesla's solar panels. "Thank you for everything," he said on twitter
The recent situation has made industry observers wonder whether musk and Tesla can easily get rid of these disputes as before. Erik qualman, a professor at Northwestern University, said: "is musk crazy or like a fox? He often plays chess while all of us are still playing checkers and defeats suspicion. As he himself said on Saturday night live: 'what, do you think I'm normal?'"