‘It’s become a personality brand now’: Why Tesla’s brand perception is in a tricky spot as sales slump

With that said, signs do point to brand sentiment dipping for Tesla. As of this week, some 15% of U.S. adults were considering purchasing a Tesla, down from 20% the week of March 24-30, according to data from Morning Consult. The data firm also noted that “negative buzz” around the brand has been growing since the first week of January, when 25% of respondents to a survey said they had heard or read mainly negative things about Tesla, to now, when 42% said the same.

Meanwhile, Sprout Social, measured sentiment for mentions of Tesla and DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) in social posts across X, Reddit and YouTube from March 18 to April 2 and found that sentiment was 61% negative, 19% neutral and 20% positive.

The problem for Tesla, according to brand consultants, is that the brand itself is deeply linked to Musk, and the way consumers feel about the brand is dictated by how they feel about Musk. On top of that, Tesla has done relatively little when it comes to marketing and advertising, something Musk has famously shied away from for the brand. (Tesla did have a marketing team for a few months in 2024 before it was axed.)

“It’s rare to find examples where the product is good but the marketing or the brand is almost non-existent,” said Douglas Brundage, founder and CEO of brand studio Kingsland, who also noted that, aside from a logo and a good product, Tesla doesn’t have much of a brand to speak of. “That’s the issue here. We talk a lot in the industry about how a brand should be a moat. This is a good example of not having that moat and what can happen.”

Brundage continued: “[Musk] is intrinsically tied to the brand and he’s acting crazy. People don’t like what he’s doing. They have every right to vote with their wallets and not consume the product.”

When consumers buy cars, they often consider what their brand choice says about them as a person, explained Allen Adamson, brand consultant and co-founder of brand consultancy Metaforce, adding that when Musk was seen as an “inventor, innovator and engineer” it helped that the Musk brand and the Tesla brand were intertwined.

“Now the focus has totally shifted from [Musk] sleeping on the Tesla factory floor and worrying about how to make the car better to wielding a chainsaw and being really involved in politics and the government,” said Adamson. “By definition, he’s cut off half of the market. He’s so polarizing on his platform on X that he’s shot a torpedo through the Tesla brand.”

Brand consultants suggest that, at this point, marketing efforts targeting Tesla’s brand perception would likely not be enough to move the needle for the brand, until there’s a separation between Musk and Tesla. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

“Tesla has completely lost its voice, its brand purpose, and the brand’s identity has become all about Elon Musk,” said Eunice Shin, founder and CEO of brand consultancy The Elume Group. “It’s become a ‘personality brand’ now — and for consumers, it has wavered from their initial mission and now completely threatened their credibility with the core consumers they were going after.”

Tesla’s historic approach to marketing that has relied on word-of-mouth and love for the product and price point rather than traditional marketing tactics worked when the company was seen as a disrupter with few competitors in the electric vehicle space. But now that’s changed and so too must the brand’s approach to advertising, according to brand consultants.

“Tesla hasn’t been known to be aggressive in their marketing — letting the brand equity generate the demand,” said Shin. “But the marketing team is going to have to rethink that strategy they’ve relied on for all these years. Tesla is now my analog for a brand that’s lost its way — and that’s not to point the finger at the marketing team, but the impact of having such a leader.”

It’s a tall order to rebuild Tesla’s brand reputation apart from Musk, the brand consultants said, adding that it’s much easier and faster to break a brand’s identity than it is to fix it.

“It is a solid product with a sort of cheesy wrapper built on the assumption that tech equals cool, which has never and will never be a recipe for actually being cool,” said Chris Mele, managing partner at innovation consultancy Siberia, who added that he’s a reluctant Tesla owner himself when asked about Tesla’s brand perception. “It’s always been a bit dorky to me. But the battery is really good.”

Mele continued: “The thing that’s changed is that it has clearly become a gift-wrapped target for the rage a lot of people are feeling for the current administration. It’s a totem. It’s the left’s Bud Light!”