What Happens When the CEO Becomes the Brand: A Tesla Case Study

Tesla spent most of its life barely advertising. It didn’t have to. Elon Musk filled that role himself, and for a long time his public persona sold cars better than any campaign could have. Over the last two years, that same persona has become one of the company’s biggest problems.

What the numbers show

Tesla’s growth peaked in 2023, when it delivered 1.81 million vehicles. In 2025 it delivered 1.64 million, an 8.6% drop and its second year of decline in a row, while BYD passed it with more than 2.2 million EV deliveries.

Europe has been the weakest market. Registrations in major European countries went from about 326,000 in 2024 to just over 235,000 in 2025, a decline of nearly 28%. What makes that number stand out is the timing. In August 2025, Tesla’s European sales were down 22% during a month when battery-electric sales overall rose 30%. People were still buying EVs. They were just buying fewer Teslas.

The brand itself lost value too. Brand Finance put Tesla’s brand value at about $27.6 billion in January 2026, roughly 36% lower than a year earlier and close to 60% below its 2023 peak of $66.2 billion. Reputation, trust, willingness to recommend and perceived coolness all slipped, with the sharpest drops in Europe and Canada.

How Musk became part of the story

Tesla’s brand and Musk’s reputation have always been closely linked. One survey found that 83% of Americans associate Musk with Tesla, so when he stepped into politics in a big way, the company went with him.

In early 2025, protests over his role in the Trump administration and his involvement in far-right politics in Europe weighed on Tesla’s image, and analysts pointed to that as a key reason for a 13% drop in quarterly deliveries. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset

Management estimated that about 90% of the decline came down to brand damage.

The audience he lost matters as much as the size of the drop. Research from Northeastern University noted that environmentally conscious consumers, the group most put off by his politics, make up a large share of Tesla’s target market. At the same time, Tesla didn’t pick up a meaningful number of new Republican buyers to replace them.

Other pressures on the company

Musk’s politics aren’t the whole explanation. Brand Finance also cited an aging product lineup, and competition has grown fast. BYD outsold Tesla in both Germany and the UK in 2025. In the US, the loss of EV incentives played a role as well.

There’s also a real debate about how lasting the damage is. Musk has argued that the

product matters more than the brand, and the Model Y was the world’s top-selling car in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Cathie Wood of ARK Invest acknowledged the brand had been hurt but said she doesn’t expect it to be long-term. Some polling also found Tesla’s favorability rising among conservative Americans even as its overall numbers fell.

What this means for smaller brands

Most small business owners are already in Musk’s position on a smaller scale. Customers know who runs the shop, and they often buy because of that person. That connection is valuable, and it’s also where the risk sits. What an owner posts on a personal account can easily be read as the business’s position, especially in a small community.

It’s worth thinking about who your core customers are and what they care about before your personal brand and your business brand start blending together. That doesn’t mean having no opinions. It just means being aware that every public stance is also a marketing decision, whether you intend it to be or not.

Tesla built enormous loyalty around one person. How much of that loyalty comes back will probably depend on whether customers start seeing the car again instead of the CEO.