‘His rhetoric has made Tesla toxic’: is Elon Musk driving away his target market?
Elon #Musk has long flirted with #rightwing politics, and delights in pushing an image of himself as a contrarian showman. Yet in recent months the billionaire’s political allegiances have started to raise a question for Tesla, the company that he built into the world’s largest electric carmaker: just how far can he go before customers start to abandon his products?
The German pharmacy chain Rossmann was one of the first to put its head above the parapet this week. The family-owned company announced that it would not add to the 34 #Teslas in its company fleet because of Musk’s endorsement of Donald #Trump for US president.
“Trump has repeatedly called #ClimateChange a hoax,” wrote Raoul Roßmann, a spokesperson for Rossmann. “This attitude is in stark contrast to Tesla’s mission to contribute to environmental protection through the production of electric cars.”
