{"id":8298,"date":"2026-01-27T16:12:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T16:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/tesla-lost-15-billion-in-brand-value-in-2025-as-musk-stepped-deeper-into-politics-research-shows\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T16:12:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T16:12:05","slug":"tesla-lost-15-billion-in-brand-value-in-2025-as-musk-stepped-deeper-into-politics-research-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/tesla-lost-15-billion-in-brand-value-in-2025-as-musk-stepped-deeper-into-politics-research-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla lost $15 billion in brand value in 2025 as Musk stepped deeper into politics, research shows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"RegularArticle-ArticleBody-5\" data-module=\"ArticleBody\" data-test=\"articleBody-2\" data-analytics=\"RegularArticle-articleBody-5-2\"><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\" style=\"top:0;left:0\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-108228374\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\">\n<div>\n<p>Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>The value of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/TSLA\/\">Tesla&#8217;s<\/a>\u00a0brand lost $15.4 billion, about 36%, in 2025, marking a third-straight annual decline, according to research and consulting firm <a href=\"https:\/\/brandfinance.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brand Finance<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>A lack of innovative new models, and the relatively high price of Tesla&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/01\/22\/musk-says-tesla-takes-safety-supervisors-out-of-some-austin-robotaxis.html\">electric vehicles<\/a> compared to competitors eroded its brand value, said Brand Finance CEO David Haigh, as did CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/elon-musk\/\">Elon Musk<\/a>&#8216;s continued &#8220;overreach&#8221; into geopolitics, and his lack of focus on his autos business.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla&#8217;s brand value now stands at an estimated $27.61 billion, Brand Finance said in its 2026 ranking. That&#8217;s down from $43 billion at the start of 2025, $58.3 billion in 2024 and a peak of $66.2 billion in January 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Based in London, Brand Finance analyzes thousands of companies&#8217; financials, looking at revenue, licensing agreements, margins and other hard data, and combines those data points with results from comprehensive consumer surveys to estimate the monetary value of brands.<\/p>\n<p>On key measures such as &#8220;reputation, recommendation, trust, and coolness,&#8221; Tesla&#8217;s scores took a dive over the past year, according to Brand Finance Valuation Director Lorenzo Coruzzi, especially in Europe and Canada.<\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s recommendation score in the U.S. reached a new low, 4.0 out of 10, meaning consumers weren&#8217;t willing to tell their friends and family to buy a Tesla. The EV maker&#8217;s U.S. recommendation scores previously stood as high as 8.2 in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>At least 1,000 respondents in 18 different countries answered questions about Tesla. <\/p>\n<p>Consumers&#8217; general familiarity with the Tesla brand improved in most markets last year, which he said was expected as the company is no longer a startup and has been expanding sales geographically.<\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s loyalty score increased from 90% to 92% in the U.S. in 2025, an indication that customers who own Tesla vehicles are willing to keep driving them for the next twelve months. <\/p>\n<p>Tesla&#8217;s most significant rival, <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-5\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/1211-HK\/\">BYD<\/a><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> in China, was the rising star in the automotive sector, with its brand value gaining about 23%, around $17.29 billion, up from $14.03 billion last year.<\/p>\n<p>Five other automakers outranked Tesla in this year&#8217;s list, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/TM\/\">Toyota<\/a>, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Porsche, with Toyota strongest in the sector with an estimated brand value of $62.7 billion.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>The dramatic drop in Tesla&#8217;s brand value from 2025 to 2026 showed, once again, that general consumers view Musk&#8217;s company very differently than Wall Street does.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, 2025 was a volatile year for Tesla stock, which entered the year in a favorable position as Musk joined President<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/donald-trump\/\"> Donald Trump<\/a>&#8216;s White House to run the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an effort to dramatically downsize the federal government and slash federal spending.<\/p>\n<p>But Musk&#8217;s work with Trump, incendiary political rhetoric and endorsements of far-right political figures such as Germany&#8217;s anti-immigrant party AfD, and Tommy Robinson in the UK, sparked a consumer backlash that persisted through 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The loss of a federal tax credit for EV purchases in the U.S. proved another business challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla shares would rally in the back half of last year, however, after the launch of the company&#8217;s ride-hailing app, and pilot Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. Musk also single-handedly helped Tesla&#8217;s share price recover by purchasing about $1 billion worth of stock in September.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla&#8217;s share price gained about 11% by the end of 2025, with new records in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/12\/16\/tesla-stock-hits-record-on-robotaxi-hype-despite-drop-in-ev-sales.html\">mid-December<\/a> following news that the company was testing &#8220;automated driving systems,&#8221; or some autonomous vehicles, in Austin without any occupants<\/p>\n<p>Tesla is set to discuss its fourth-quarter financial results and plans for the year ahead in an earnings call on Wednesday after the market closes. The EV maker previously reported a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/01\/02\/tesla-tsla-q4-2025-vehicle-deliveries.html\">decline in deliveries<\/a> for the quarter and the full year.<\/p>\n<p>Investors can submit and vote on questions that they want management to answer on the Q4 call via Say Technologies&#8217; online forum. <\/p>\n<p>One <a href=\"https:\/\/app.saytechnologies.com\/tesla-2025-q4?sort=num_upvotes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">question<\/a> getting lots of upvotes ahead of the call concerns whether Tesla investors may get special access to invest in Musk&#8217;s aerospace and defense company, SpaceX, which aims to go public this year. <\/p>\n<p>A sub-brand of SpaceX, the satellite internet service known as Starlink, cracked the Brand Finance top 500 rankings for the first time in 2026 with a current estimated value of $5.19 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Haigh said it is unlikely that Starlink&#8217;s rising brand value could help lift Tesla.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re treated entirely separately,&#8221; he explained. <\/p>\n<p>While Musk heads up both SpaceX and Tesla, the automaker is judged against its peers in autos, and Starlink is judged against other internet service providers, Brand Finance research found.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Starlink has got a unique proposition for now,&#8221; Haigh said, &#8220;although there are a number of other companies planning to send lots and lots of satellites up to compete.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/brandfinance.com\/insights\/view-the-full-brand-finance-global-500-2026-report-here\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brand Finance Global 500 2026 list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-108252380\">\n<div role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" id=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-108252380\" class=\"PlaceHolder-wrapper\" data-vilynx-id=\"7000400822\" data-test=\"VideoPlaceHolder\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-videoEmbed\" id=\"InlineVideo-0\" data-test=\"InlineVideo\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-inlineThumbnailContainer\"><span class=\"InlineVideo-videoButton\"\/><span\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images The value of\u00a0Tesla&#8217;s\u00a0brand lost $15.4 billion, about 36%, in 2025, marking a third-straight annual decline, according to research and consulting firm Brand [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1850,1238,2409,12550,642,1576,199,10869,12551,11611,1469,298,945,1844,230,8852,1276,11056,10198,304,1649,193,8554,3815,314],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/image.cnbcfm.com\/api\/v1\/image\/108228374-1769475966623-108228374-1763570145816-gettyimages-2246882303-US_SAUDI.jpg?v=1769475984&w=1920&h=1080","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}