[stephen_g]

I’m seeing a huge upswell in organic hate for Musk over the last little while across a bunch of forums online, as well as people making jokes about him in real life (this is in Australia), and the dropping Tesla sales seem to be confirming the trend.

So the simplest explanation is not anyone ‘steering’ anything, but just that he’s absolutely trashed his own reputation outside what is a fairly narrow political persuasion internationally…

(The kind of pro-Trump style conservatism is fairly large in the US but a much smaller minority in much of the rest of the world, and of course the overlap of that and people who would buy EVs is even smaller)

[ozmodiar]

This even under sells it a bit. Trump style conservatism has turned toxic and Musk is heavily associated with its worst aspects (think the "salute"). I think a lot of Americans just don't get how angry the constant threats of tarrifs and attacks is making people. For a mental exercise they should try imagining how mad people were about egg prices, then imagine how much angrier they'd be if on top of that their largest partner started talking about wanting to explicitly ruin their economy if not outright invade them. It's insanity.