Meet Elon Musk v2.0

Our polling shows a fascinating polarization surrounding Elon Musk. Put simply, Democrats and people who say climate change is a serious problem that must be addressed do not like Elon Musk. That’s quite a change from where Elon started as the visionary who put modern mass adoption of EVs into motion. Conversely, highly EV-skeptical Republicans… quite like Elon. As the mercurial tycoon has evolved rightward on many issues, Elon v2.0 has found a new audience of admirers and fans. Try this one on for size… Trump supporters like Elon quite a bit, while Biden supporters, well, pretty much despise him. “But wait a minute, Biden likes EVs and Elon is Mr. EV, so shouldn’t…”

Don’t even try to figure it out. In our tribal politics, the enemy of my enemy is, naturally, my friend.

Metaphysics aside, this funhouse mirror situation has high very stakes out in the real world of moving the U.S. toward EV adoption. As our research has shown, political ideology has deeply tangled up the EV marketplace in the U.S. Many consumers, especially on the right, see EVs far more as political statements than as vehicles. So it is no surprise that the data we found regarding opinions surrounding Elon Musk reflects that.

Check out the data slides below. You can see the deep partisan split over whether or not people on each political team see Elon Musk as a good Ambassador for EVs.

Almost a mirror image between Republicans and Democrats on this: 2-1 ratio in both cases.

Here is the same “Ambassador for EVs” question, but now broken out by what respondents said about Climate Change. We asked respondents which statement they agreed with: climate change is a serious problem that must be addressed now, or climate change is overhyped and not that serious a problem? Again, opinion about Elon as a good Ambassador for EVs splits.

Here is a table with additional cross-tabs. This time the core question is a favorability test on Elon. Note the big difference in views about Elon 2.0 held by Trump vs Biden fans, and how that mirrors the split between the two sides on the seriousness of climate change.

All of which leaves us with the Big Question: is Elon Musk v2.0 a growing nightmare for Tesla’s brand managers, who might now be hoping the Tesla Boss hops on the next Space-X mission to Mars and stays there? Or does Elon v2.0 offer the priceless chance to create a Nixon to China moment and start opening minds among Republican EV skeptics? What a final twist in the story that would be.

For our Elon Musk data deck, you can click here for the PDF.