After years at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution, raising its reputation among consumers and boosting its profits in the process, Tesla is now on a downward spiral. The company saw its deliveries drop for the first time in a decade last year, profits are down and its brand value has now taken a $15 billion hit as a result of its aging lineup and Elon Musk’s move to the right.
The value of Tesla’s brand dropped for a second straight year, according to a study carried out by research firm Brand Finance. The study factors in everything from consumer surveys and company finances to profit margins and licensing agreements to estimate the monetary value of brands, explains CNBC.
After analyzing everything Tesla has to offer, Brand Finance found that the company’s value has fallen for a second year running and now sits at an estimated $43 billion. In contrast, the automaker was valued at $66.2 billion at the start of 2023 and $58.3 billion at the beginning of 2024:
On key measures like “consideration,” “reputation” and “recommendation,” Tesla’s scores declined across the board in major markets where it operates factories and sells its cars — the U.S., Europe and Asia, Brand Finance found.
A consideration score shows whether people would consider buying from a brand. A reputation score shows how highly respondents regard a brand on average on a scale from 1 to 10. And a recommendation score indicates whether or not people are likely to speak favorably about a brand.
Tesla saw significant declines in its scores in Europe, where its consideration score dropped from 21% to 16% on average from 2024 to 2025.
The big reasons for the drop in perception of Tesla’s value comes down to its aging product lineup and the ever-increasing shift to the right from company boss Elon Musk. In the past few weeks, Musk has targeted schemes to increase diversity in the workplace, platformed a right-wing political party from Germany and made what looked an awful lot like a Nazi salute at the inauguration of Donald Trump.
It turns out this isn’t a great look for business and Musk’s moves “against the interests of his own company” have hit its value, adds Inside EVs:
Brand Finance also said Musk’s “antagonism” is hurting Tesla. Musk was President Donald Trump’s largest political donor (and the largest donor to either party in 2024), with $277 million in contributions to his campaign efforts. By supporting Trump, who has started pulling federal support for EVs and charging infrastructure by signing executive orders on his first day in office, Musk has gone against the interests of his own company.
At the same time, Musk says he believes that ending the incentives—which Tesla has benefitted from in the past and continues to do so—might help the company in the end. The automaker has more margin built into its cars than its rivals. Tesla is also the only automaker in the U.S. that is turning a considerable profit on its EVs, whereas others are losing billions of dollars while scaling up. He has also been fueling culture wars online, peddling conspiracy theories and amplifying misinformation.
Who’d have thought that conspiracy theories and misinformation would be bad for business? Shocking, I know. The nosedive in Tesla’s brand value over the past year means that Toyota is now the most valuable automaker out there, according to the Brand Finance study, with Mercedes-Benz now the second most valuable.