Buyer’s Remorse Redemption Tour For Tesla CEO Elon Musk

Last Updated on: 29th June 2025, 01:28 pm

Oh, the buyer’s remorse, it burns. Having launched US President Donald Trump into office with a reported $250 million contribution to the president’s campaign last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now having second thoughts. Like, big ones. Loud ones. Public ones. Maybe he really means it, maybe not, but Musk’s latest series of statements critical of the new Trump-supported tax bill sure smell like a last-ditch attempt to redeem the Tesla brand from the cellar into which he thrust it.

The Bloom Is Off The Tesla Rose, Bigly

The downward brand reputation trajectory of Tesla long predates Musk’s 2024 role as a US presidential kingmaker. However, until last year his previous antics never seemed to ripple out to impact sales of his signature EVs.

Among many other questionable actions in recent years, Musk sent up a red flag when he went rogue on return-to-work safety protocols during the COVID outbreak in 2020. Another flag went up over his misdirection on COVID vaccines, and his seemingly feckless purchase of Twitter in 2022 set off a five-alarm fire.

S&P Global, for one, was paying attention. In 2022, the firm dropped Tesla from its 500 ESG Index, which requires eligible firms to follow environment, social, and governance principles.

That’s water under the bridge compared to the ripple effect of Musk’s actions on the Tesla brand between last year’s presidential election cycle and this year’s “DOGE” debacle. Though some auto industry analysts point to other factors that could contribute to a sudden and swift decline in Tesla sales globally, the consensus has landed consistently on the brand reputation factor.

The Horns Of A Brand Reputation Dilemma

Musk and Tesla are now sitting atop the horns of a dilemma on a Homeric scale. On the Scylla side, Tesla’s brand reputation meltdown is all but certain to continue impacting sales unless Musk successfully separates himself and his brand from the Trump administration. If he goes down that path, however, he risks veering too close to the chomping jaws of Charybdis. That would be Trump himself, who awaits an opportunity to pounce from the other side unless Musk backs down.

Trump may be the worst president ever in US history, but he still knows that making electric cars is not the only Musk venture to receive considerable support from the federal taxpaying public. Musk’s various interests have been supported by federal contracts, including the high-profile SpaceX startup. As the representative of the Charybdis side of the dilemma, Trump has already threatened to cut Musk’s business off from the federal money pool once before.

What would you do in that situation? Musk himself doesn’t seem to know. As closely chronicled by numerous news organizations, Musk summarily left his role at DOGE and lobbed a series of insults at President Trump and the tax bill (the “Big Beautiful Bill”) in May, only to cool off at the beginning of June when Trump threatened to pull the plug on federal funding.

The prospect of trouble over federal contracts is just one threat to Musk’s fortunes. As head of “DOGE,” Musk did a fine job of eviscerating the staff of multiple federal agencies investigating his EV business, X, SpaceX, and other concerns for alleged breakage of laws. Trump could just as easily turn around and order those agencies to staff up again.

What’s Next For Tesla Sales And The Big, Beautiful Bill

Either way, the truce didn’t last long. Musk went back to hurling insults at Trump and his tax bill earlier this week, and the mainstream media eagerly picked up on the food fight.

As reported by CBS over the weekend, Musk took to his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to rail against the tax bill, stating that it will “destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country.”

“The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, whose birthday is also Saturday, later posted that the bill would be ‘political suicide for the Republican Party,’” CBS added.

That’s easy enough for Musk to say. Redeeming Tesla’s brand reputation is going a whole ‘nother can of worms, on account of the very same Trump-supported tax bill that Musk is now criticizing. Members of the US voting public were generally not paying much attention to the wonky world of federal tax policy earlier this year. However, now that the legislative process is down to the wire, more people are paying attention and they don’t like what they see.

Like it or not, the Republican Party currently has enough votes to pass the bill into law without any help from Democrats, and Trump is all but certain to sign it into law, and there’s nothing Musk can do about it now.

Meanwhile, the Democrats, as the minority party in Congress, are planning to stall the vote for a few days, providing themselves with an opportunity to amplify everything not to like in the new tax bill. If any prospective EV buyers are paying attention, they will have all the more reason to reject any automaker closely associated with the bill and its passage into law.

Still, desperate times call for desperate measures. Musk seems eager to do something, anything, to boost his EV sales, even if it threatens his other ventures.

The political situation in the US is just part of the problem. Tesla’s sales record is on dismal footing globally, including in Europe where Trump’s ham-handed (to put it kindly) foreign policy has had a significant downward impact on sales even as the European market continues to enjoy an increase in overall EV registrations.

About That Full Self-Driving Thing …

The hurt is not close to ending. Musk tried to paper over the problems with an underwhelming, error-filled rollout of his much-hyped self-driving robotaxi service in Austin last week, followed by an equally underwhelming showcase of self-driving technology in which a single car reportedly drove from the factory straight to the door of its new owner, all by itself.

As reported by multiple news organizations, however, the event was filmed and uploaded instead of livestreamed, leading some to question whether or not the journey was as seamless as Musk has indicated. Fortune’s Christiaan Hetzner, for example, also noted that the battery range of the vehicle imposes severe limitations on the factory-to-doorstep delivery model, while exposing the vehicle to possible damage along its route.

In addition, the showcase took place amidst concerns over Tesla’s marketing of FSD technology in France, where the company is facing stiff fined unless it fixes allegedly deceptive language in its pitch to EV drivers.

All of this bodes ill for Tesla sales, no matter what tack Musk takes. The Q2 results are bad enough. “This coming week, Tesla is expected to publish second-quarter global production and delivery figures that show a 14% decline in deliveries to 383,000 vehicles, according to the median estimate polled by the company’s investor relations team,” reports Fortune Magazine (as reposted by Yahoo News).

Hold on to your hats … or better yet, find your representatives in Congress and let them know what you think about the new tax bill.

Photo: Desperate times call for desperate measures as Tesla CEO Elon Musk attempts to repair a badly damaged EV brand before it goes kaput (via CleanTechnica archives).