I hear this a lot but I've not heard any coherent explanation for how Musk's actions don't hurt the brand. Obviously as a billionaire being a big fan of the Republican party would hardly be a surprise, he could have supported them, even donated large sums to them without any significant backlash. But becoming a key part of the administration instantly alienates half of the country, and by extension the customer base. And that is before you get into his "Roman salute" antics.
It’s especially bad when you think about the people who bought Teslas early. I’m sure the CEO of Toyota has views which would annoy many Prius owners but they’ve been wise enough to make it easy for prospective owners to never once even think about them, whereas Musk seems determined to make it impossible to ignore.
I mean even if you just look at it from the point of view that having Musk as your "ideas guy" is a pretty good proxy for success. How can the fact that he's spending most of his time as some kind of political missionary rather than on developing the business be a positive thing?
