I agree and actually think it’s the overwhelming factor. People loved Tesla and Musk until he started promoting his politics. It was a stupid thing to do as a CEO, especially for a company whose customers tend toward the opposite end of the political spectrum.
People loved Tesla and Musk while he was pretending to do green and progressive politics. That was a huge boost to the brand, because the cars, the batteries, and Starlink all made sense as an ecosystem that came with attractive branding and customer identification.
Then he did a 180 and set it all on fire. It's now a top-down zeitgeist, not a bottom-up one, and the most understated thing anyone can say about that is that it's causing growing resentment.
