--- title: "Elon Musk’s Companies Just Hit Rock Bottom in New Reputation Rankings" description: "Today in metrics that Elon Musk's enterprises are eating shit in: a new Axios Harris Poll of the US's 100 most visible companies, which shows that Tesla and SpaceX are absolutely collapsing in reputation as their owner continues to embarrass himself on the world stage. It's not a shocking development, but even so, the numbers paint an astonishingly swift fall from grace.  In the 2021 poll, Tesla was 8th place in reputation ranking, putting it ahead of brands like Costco, Apple, and Toyota.  But somewhere along the way the automaker tripped on the staircase, smashed its head in, and is […]" date: "2025-05-20" modified: "2025-05-20" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tesla-spacex-reputation-sentiment" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "SpaceX" - "tesla" - "trump administration" --- # Elon Musk’s Companies Just Hit Rock Bottom in New Reputation Rankings ![Elon Musk's businesses are being profoundly affected by reputation crashes due to his involvement in politics.]() *\Image: Jason Redmond / AFP via Getty / Futurism\* Today, in metrics that Elon Musk's enterprises are fully eating dirt: A [new Axios Harris Poll]() of the US's 100 most visible companies showing Tesla and SpaceX, collapsing in reputation. The poll seeks to divine positive consumer sentiment and trust among large companies — and Musk's are crashing, due in no small part to widespread disapproval of Musk's role in the Trump administration, a sentiment that continues to [grow]() across all political affiliations. This isn't a shocking development, but even so, the numbers paint an astonishingly swift fall from grace. In the [2021 poll](), Tesla was eighth place in reputation ranking, putting it ahead of brands like Costco, Apple, and Toyota. But along the way, the automaker has since tripped on the staircase up, and come crashing backwards. Last [year](), Tesla fell all the way down to 63rd place — and now, in 2025, it's plunged to rock-bottom-95th, where it's keeping company with the likes of [Meta](), Wells Fargo, and [UnitedHealth Group](). Toyota, it's worth mentioning, has leapfrogged Tesla to 4th place, with five other car companies ahead of the EV automaker. Per *Axios*, Tesla also placed dead last in "character," and ranked nearly as poorly in areas like "ethics" and "citizenship." SpaceX is hardly better off. In 2021, Musk's aerospace company was sitting pretty at 5th place, but this year it tumbled to 86th. That puts it right alongside a scandal-plagued [Boeing,]() at 88th. SpaceX isn't a consumer facing company like Tesla, so the reputation hit theoretically isn't so material to their future. But the polling data showed a worrying 28.7 percent difference between Republican and Democrat respondents, the outlet reported, which could certainly be a liability down the line if political fortunes swing out of their favor. X (formerly Twitter) also features here — embarrassingly — with a 98th place finish — but it's always done poorly, [even before Musk's takeover](). Again, this astonishing fall from consumers' good graces can be laid at the feet of Musk, who has alienated consumers on both sides of the aisle with his role in the Trump administration. Through his so-called [Department of Government Efficiency](), Musk has laid waste to the federal government by firing tens of thousands of government employees, cutting off hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, and [tampering with American's Social Security](). His personal conduct was likely no less repulsive to those same consumers, including his willingness to engage in (ostensibly) performative Nazism, and his regular sharing of [racist conspiracy theories](). Beyond poor polling numbers, these actions have had material consequences for his businesses. Musk's actions catalyzed a global "Tesla Takedown" [protest movement](), with Tesla dealerships and cars regularly targeted with vandalism. The automaker's annual sales declined for the first time in 2024, and have fallen in the first quarter of 2025 by 37 percent [in Europe]() and 9 percent [in the US](). Its [net income during this period](), meanwhile, has slid by 71 percent. In a rare moment of self-reflection, Musk himself [has admitted]() that his time in DOGE has incurred some pretty nasty blowback on his businesses. And if this new poll is anything to go by, their reputations are going to need feats of veritable necromancy to recover. **More on Musk's business acumen:** *[A Longtime Tesla Bull Dumped His Stock, Predicting a Total Collapse]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()