Elon Musk's metamorphosis: From tech hero to political villain?

In most Hollywood thrillers, the pivotal moment occurs with a clash between good and evil. A protagonist, successful in his trade and seeking a final, lucrative exit, pulls in his friends for one last mission. This mission, the most thrilling of their lives, forces them to place everything they've gained on the line. 

This mirrors Elon Musk’s current situation. Despite his complex public persona, he finds himself trapped in a battle between good and evil. He believes he is the good guy. But where he has placed himself now is not helping him a bit. There are of course those who champion him as a modern-day hero, a tech visionary, an ‘Issac Neutron’ (sic) who invented the light bulb (sic), who launches a space mission to save the ‘wild hair’ astronaut-in-distress ‘abandoned by Sleepy Joe’ (sic), at the request of the president. But a growing faction of people in the US and across the globe now perceives him as a villain, and a wolf finally exposed.

Disturbing picture

A section of people had long nursed but tried to hush up a nagging suspicion about the world's richest man. But his pre-election alignment with the GOP revealed his true direction. Any lingering doubts were obliterated by the Nazi-style salute at Trump's inauguration, and the picture became disturbingly clear. 

That was his Titanic moment. His White House antics and the role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency further pushed him past the point of any immediate PR recovery. The public, preoccupied with real-world issues like price hikes and jobs, not fictional government spending cuts, saw the performance. And, as social media dictates, the consequences were instant.

It is apparent that Elon Musk, living in his rarefied bubble of megalomania, somehow missed the message: his wealth is built on public trust, his company's fate is tied to stock value, and most importantly, he's not above accountability. Aligning himself to a far-right policy may be fine, but alienating a larger public base, who may not be as greedy for money or power as himself, is not the right business decision in the long run.  

The man and the brand

The image of the Tesla brand seems inextricably tied to Elon Musk and it is not helping the former anyway now. Reduced to humiliating social media trolls of ‘Swasticar’ and ‘I bought this before Elon went crazy’, etc., Tesla is facing a severe backlash in the US and abroad.

Elon still is the world’s richest man but his net worth has reportedly dropped approximately $102 billion, which is about 24 per cent of his wealth. The fall is mainly due to a sharp decrease in Tesla’s share prices.

Since peaking at $479.86 on December 17, Tesla shares have lost more than 50% of their value, wiping out more than $800 billion in market cap, CNBC reported on March 10. The company has gained an unenviable (at the moment) label of an American product in the middle of Trump's tariff war with the rest of the world. Trump may be buying a Tesla for himself and showing it off from the White House, but the rest of the world is not buying the product - or the idea - at the moment.