The toxicity of Elon Musk's personal brand seems to have dragged down the reputations of his various companies — tanking public opinion not only of Musk himself, but of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, according to a new poll from Axios.
Axios didn't poll Musk's individual approval rating, but the outlet did poll the "reputation scores" of major corporations based on how a sample of Americans rated them in nine categories: "character," "trajectory," "trust," "culture," "ethics," "citizenship," "vision," "growth," and "products & services." Trader Joe's is the most trusted company in the United States, according to the top 100 list, and Spirit Airlines the least of the bunch — entirely expected results for a grocery store that deals in fair trade goods and an airline where luxuries like "luggage" cost extra. But while Toyota sits up at number 4, above stalwarts like Costco and Arizona Iced Tea, Tesla is all the way down in 95th place-a drop of 32 places from last year's poll.
The highest-ranked of Musk's companies is SpaceX, coming in 86th place — above Boeing, but below ExxonMobil, BP, and even the Ultimate Fighting Championship. When ranked on the company's "character, "though, it drops to 90th place. That's actually somehow a worse showing than Boeing, which sits at 88th for character. Still better than Tesla, though, with its character score of absolute dead last.
The worst-ranked of all, though, is Musk's social network — a site that goes misnamed in nearly all instances, because "Twitter" is still more descriptive than the single character "X." Musk's don't-call-it-Twitter slots in position 98 overall, between Facebook at 97 and The Trump Organization at 99. It's also the only of Musk's companies not to see a major drop in its score this year, simply because it was already doing so poorly. It slotted in at 99th place last year.
It's not just this Axios' study ringing the alarm bell on Musk's companies. A JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst commented on Tesla's horrible Q1 report, which showed a devastating sales drop of 44%, saying "the unprecedented brand damage we had earlier feared." While he won't do his companies the favor of stepping down, Musk seems to realize his political actions have turned his brands toxic, as he's been pulling back from politics over the last few weeks including stepping away from his Department of Government Efficiency and reducing his political spending.