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.

Rani Molla

Tunnel Vision

14h

Tesla gets permit to test autonomous cars in Nevada as autonomous driving heats up there

Amazon’s self-driving Zoox launched service this week, and Google’s Waymo is testing there.

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OpenAI and Microsoft reach agreement that moves OpenAI closer to for-profit status

In a joint statement, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a “non-binding memorandum of understanding” for their renegotiated $13 billion partnership, which was a source of recent tension between the two companies.

Settling the agreement is a requirement to clear the way for OpenAI to convert to a for-profit public benefit corporation, which it must do before a year-end deadline to secure a $20 billion investment from SoftBank.

OpenAI also announced that the controlling nonprofit arm would hold an equity stake in the PBC valued at $100 billion, which would make it “one of the most well-resourced philanthropic organizations in the world.”

The statement read:

“This recapitalization would also enable us to raise the capital required to accomplish our mission — and ensure that as OpenAI’s PBC grows, so will the nonprofit’s resources, allowing us to bring it to historic levels of community impact.”

A joint statement from OpenAI and Microsoft

The statement read:

“This recapitalization would also enable us to raise the capital required to accomplish our mission — and ensure that as OpenAI’s PBC grows, so will the nonprofit’s resources, allowing us to bring it to historic levels of community impact.”

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BofA doesn’t expect Tesla’s ride-share service to have an impact on Uber or Lyft this year

Analysts at Bank of America Global Research compared Tesla’s new Bay Area ride-sharing service with its rivals and found that, for now, it’s not much competition for Uber and Lyft. “Tesla scale in SF is still small, and we don’t expect impact on Uber/Lyft financial performance in ’25,” they wrote.

Tesla is operating an unknown number of cars with drivers using supervised full self-driving in the Bay Area, and roughly 30 autonomous robotaxis in Austin. The company has allowed the public to download its Robotaxi app and join a waitlist, but it hasn’t said how many people have been let in off that waitlist.

While the analysts found that Tesla ride-shares are cheaper than traditional ride-share services like Uber and Lyft, the wait times are a lot longer (nine-minute wait times on average, when cars were available at all) and the process has more friction. They also said the “nature of [a] Tesla FSD ‘driver’ is slightly more aggressive than a Waymo,” the Google-owned company that’s currently operating 800 vehicles in the Bay Area.

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Oracle’s massive sales backlog is thanks to a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, WSJ reports

OpenAI has signed a massive deal to purchase $300 billion worth of cloud computing capacity from Oracle, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The report notes that the five-year deal would be one of the largest cloud computing contracts ever signed, requiring 4.5 gigawatts of capacity.

The news is prompting shares to pare some of their massive gains, presumably because of concerns about counterparty and concentration risk.

Yesterday, Oracle shares skyrocketed as much as 30% in after-hours trading after the company forecast that it expects its cloud infrastructure business to see revenues climb to $144 billion by 2030.

Oracle shares were up as much as 43% on Wednesday.

It’s the second example in under a week of how much OpenAI’s cash burn and fundraising efforts are playing a starring role in the AI boom: the Financial Times reported that OpenAI is also the major new Broadcom customer that has placed $10 billion in orders.

Exclusive | Oracle, OpenAI Sign Massive $300 Billion Cloud Computing Deal