A Tesla stranded in floodwater after heavy rainfall (Fatih Aktas/Getty Images)

The public’s impression of Tesla has sunk to its lowest levels ever

Tesla’s image is especially bad among moderates and liberals.

3/14/25 7:16AM

Tesla’s stock price isn’t the only thing that’s taken a dive recently.

Americans’ overall impression of the company is more negative than ever, according to data shared with Sherwood News by YouGov, a market research company that continually surveys people on how they perceive different brands. Indeed, carmaker’s reputation is at its lowest point since YouGov began tracking Tesla back in 2016 — not good news for a company already struggling with sales.

Americans’ opinions of Tesla started falling precipitously in the spring of 2022, around the time CEO Elon Musk initiated his purchase of Twitter. It hit negative territory — meaning more Americans had a negative impression of the company than a positive one — in the summer of that year, right before the acquisition went through and as his politics moved more vocally to the right.

Since then, Musk has aligned himself firmly with now President Donald Trump and has begun slashing federal budgets and head counts as the leader of an extragovernmental organization he named the Department of Government Efficiency. If the general public’s perception of Tesla is any indication, they don’t like what he’s been up to.

Of course, Americans’ opinions vary by political affiliation. Only among conservatives does Tesla have a positive net impression score, at about 7. For comparison, Americans’ average net impression of all carmakers is quite a bit higher, at 17.

Tesla’s net impression among moderates is -9 and a lowly -35 among liberals. Population-wide, Tesla is at -12.8, the lowest on record.

Trump’s recent Tesla purchase aside, Musk’s move into partisanship probably won’t do his car company many favors among consumers. As JPMorgan noted this week, Musk is mostly alienating Democrats — the very people most likely to buy EVs in the first place.

The most outlandish tech CEO quotes from 2025

Tech CEOs have been nuttier than ever.

Rani Molla12/12/25

Trump AI executive order is a “major win” for Open AI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, says Ives

President Trump’s new executive order aiming to keep states from enacting AI laws that inhibit US “global AI dominance” is a “major win” for OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. Big Tech companies have collectively plowed hundreds of billions into the technology, while seeing massive stock price gains, and Ives believes they stand to gain much more.

“Given that there have been over 1,000 AI laws proposed at the state level, this was a necessary move by the Trump Administration to keep the US out in front for the AI Revolution over China,” Ives wrote, adding that state-by-state regulation “would have crushed US AI startup culture.” The presidential order would withhold federal funds from states that put in place onerous AI regulations.

This morning, Whitehouse AI adviser Sriram Krishnan said in a CNBC interview that he’d be working with Congress on a single national framework for AI.

Despite Ives’ rosy read-through on the order, with the exception of Nvidia, which jumped on a report of boosted Chinese demand, many AI stocks are in the red early today. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF is down nearly 1% premarket, as the AI trade struggles thanks to underwhelming earnings results from Oracle earlier this week.

Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence

This morning, Whitehouse AI adviser Sriram Krishnan said in a CNBC interview that he’d be working with Congress on a single national framework for AI.

Rani Molla12/11/25

Epic scores two victories as “Fortnite” returns to Google Play and appeals court keeps injunction against Apple

“Fortnite” maker Epic Games notched two wins Thursday in its drawn-out battle against Big Tech’s app stores. “Fortnite” returned to the Google Play app store in the US, Reuters reports, as Epic continues working with Google to secure court approval for their settlement.

Meanwhile, a US appeals court partly reversed sanctions against Apple in Epic’s antitrust case, calling parts of the order overly broad, but upheld the contempt finding and left a sweeping injunction in place — keeping pressure on Apple to allow developers to steer users to outside payment options and reduce its tight control over how apps can communicate and monetize on iOS.

So many reasons to drop in this month... and now we're on Google Play in the U.S. too!

Android: https://t.co/Z6pkYqYsRI
iPhone: https://t.co/JNpTVneGMN
PC: https://t.co/CPsjp3XNdo pic.twitter.com/TV9b1ZlqfJ
— Fortnite (@Fortnite) December 11, 2025

Jon Keegan12/11/25

Report: AI-powered toys tell kids where to find matches, parrot Chinese government propaganda

You may want to think twice before buying your kids a fancy AI-powered plush toy.

A new report from NBC News found that several AI-powered kids toys could easily be steered to dangerous as well as sexually explicit conversations in a shocking demonstration of the loose safety guardrails in this novel category of consumer electronics.

A report out by the Public Interest Research Group details what researchers found when they tested five AI-powered toys for kids bought from Amazon. Some of the toys offered instructions on where to find matches and how to start fires.

NBC News also bought some of these toys and found they parroted Chinese government propaganda and gave instructions for how to sharpen knives. Some of the toys also discussed inappropriate topics for kids, like sexual kinks.

The category of AI-powered kids toys is under scrutiny as major AI companies like OpenAI have announced partnerships with toy manufacturers like Mattel (which has yet to release an AI-powered toy).

AI toys for kids talk about sex and issue Chinese Communist Party talking points, tests show

The category of AI-powered kids toys is under scrutiny as major AI companies like OpenAI have announced partnerships with toy manufacturers like Mattel (which has yet to release an AI-powered toy).

Jon Keegan12/11/25

OpenAI releases GPT-5.2, the “best model yet for real-world, professional use”

After feeling the heat from Google’s recent launch of its powerful Gemini 3 model, OpenAI’s response to its “code red” has been released, reportedly on an accelerated schedule to keep up with the competition.

The company’s new flagship model, GPT-5.2, is out, and the company is calling it “the most capable model series yet for professional knowledge work.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it the “smartest generally-available model in the world” and shared benchmarks that showed it achieving higher scores than Gemini 3 Pro and Anthopic’s Claude Opus 4.5 in some software engineering tests and abstract reasoning, math, and science problems.

In a press release announcing the new model, the company said: “Overall, GPT‑5.2 brings significant improvements in general intelligence, long-context understanding, agentic tool-calling, and vision — making it better at executing complex, real-world tasks end-to-end than any previous model.”