The poll shows that public views of Musk are increasingly polarized, with Republican support of the billionaire rising while Democratic support falls.

Elon Musk’s support among Democrats has withered to a new low as he has embraced Republican politics, according to a national NBC News poll.

Only 6% of Democrats in the poll, which was conducted Sept. 13-17, said they had positive feelings about Musk, while 79% said they had negative feelings. The numbers were flipped for Republicans, with 62% having positive feelings toward him and 14% negative feelings. Independents were split, 31% to 36%.

The poll shows that views of Musk are increasingly polarized, reflecting the transformation of his public image in recent years from that of an environmentally aware automaker crusading against fossil fuels to that of a conservative activist aligned with former President Donald Trump.

  • ShepherdPie
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    1 day ago

    Being excited about technological progress at Tesla or SpaceX doesn’t mean you’re a fan or supporter of Musk. These companies are full of thousands of engineers doing this work while the absentee CEO is spending his time shitposting and driving Twitter into the ground.

    • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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      5 hours ago

      Unfortunately that CEO is giving them all a bad name. And the cybertruck is enough of a disaster that it’s destroying the reputation of Tesla by itself.

      I don’t know if you can call the cybertruck progress when it’s fucking up basic stuff already worked out in normal cars. Like manual door releases.

    • WalnutLum@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      It’s important to take Tesla and SpaceX at face value and not to extrapolate future success based on what they’ve accomplished.

      Edit: for anyone that follows SpaceX’s current shenanigans, seems like they’ve been using the FAA to scoot permits to launch without proper authorization from other agencies (notably the EPA)

      Shit is getting VERY juicy: https://fixupx.com/RepKiley/status/1839066996274516417

      They’ve even got representatives just kind of going along with their demonstrably false narrative for the ride.

      • ShepherdPie
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        1 day ago

        I 100% agree with that and think they need to kick him to the curb. What influence and publicity he could generate for the companies 10 years ago is now long gone and has now transformed into a giant liability.

        • Furbag@lemmy.world
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          21 hours ago

          I’m honestly shocked that the board hasn’t gotten rid of him yet. he’s just a massive source of problems for them. My suspicion is that he is so good at creating controversy that they can time their watches to it, so to speak, and buy/sell their positions in the company while Elon takes all the heat from the SEC for insider trading, not the crooked board members who know he’s a total whacko but acknowledge the reality that he has a lot of gullible techbros with too much money on their hands hanging on his every word and they will rush to buy Tesla stock or Dogecoin or whatever if Elon says he’s making market moves when he’s actually running his classic pump-and-dump schemes.

          • ShepherdPie
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            7 hours ago

            There’s gotta be some truth to this as I was astounded that they approved that $50+ billion payout that he recently received after threatening to quit. In recent years, Tesla has really floundered and is rapidly losing marketshare with each passing day mostly due to Musk’s actions. In what world does that deserve a singular payout valued higher than most corporations earn in an entire year?