Staying On Brand

Musk has a slight image issue.

What do Elon Musk and Donald Trump have in common? They're both failing at the thing they used to do best: branding. In politics, one’s “brand” is becoming increasingly important. By brand, I don’t just mean the logo on one’s campaign sign (but thankfully, people have put more thought into that since 2008). In design, the brand is everything about your corporate image. It goes beyond the logo and the colors used on your website: it’s the tone, personality, and voice of the product. When we apply this to politics, it encompasses the policies that an individual or their supporters advocate for. This past month has seen the brand of two of America’s most important political actors take a few hits. Elon Musk and Donald Trump both came to power based on distinct political messaging and by changing those messages, their images and reputations have taken substantial hits. Both Musk and Trump have gained substantial right-wing followings while promoting or originating ideas traditionally aligned with the left.

As politics becomes more and more tribal, it’s less the policy and more the image of the politician that’s important. While this does allow for some changes to policy, it’s still difficult to move away from the core of those arguments.

Cyber (Flip) Flop

Elon Musk’s personal brand is now 180 degrees removed from the image he and his companies have built over the past 20 years. Both Tesla and SpaceX have a natural affinity with the progressive or left-of-center side of politics, given their technological forwardness, and Musk has been the star of both companies since their inception. Musk has a record of supporting progressive causes, including Universal Basic Income and environmentalism. However, there has been a significant shift in his personal politics over the past five years. Since his purchase of Twitter and subsequent platforming of right-wing figures, he’s increasingly thrown his support and hundreds of millions of dollars behind right-wing candidates such as Trump, the UK’s Reform Party, and Germany’s AfD. He’s ramped up his attacks on DEI initiatives, the media, regulatory frameworks, and public institutions, even though he’s significantly benefited from government contracts and friendly media coverage before he entered professional politics.

Musk’s image as a disruptor and generous interpretation of the First Amendment to give everyone a right to say whatever, whenever, wherever, without fear of punishment from anyone or anything has put him firmly into the libertarian camp. His willingness to slash government through DOGE has made him a friend to traditional small-government conservatives. However, this creep toward the right has turned off his previous fan base. A case in point is a line from Star Trek: Discovery. Set in the mid-2200s, a line lists Musk as one of the pioneers of space travel along with the Wright Brothers and the inventor of Warp travel (the ability to travel faster than light, but I won’t geek out here). At the time, the largely progressive viewers of Star Trek tolerated the line, but it was controversial at the time. Since then, the line has aged like milk, as the kids say.

Elon Musk’s increasingly erratic move to the right has damaged the brands of his companies. While Space X is essentially a government vendor, Tesla’s sales have not been good, to say the least. In April 2025, Tesla's sales were down 16% compared to the same period last year and down 21% for the first quarter. Sales in Europe have taken an even greater hit, despite the EV market experiencing overall growth. The Cybertruck is quickly becoming a flop, with only 40,000 sold in all of 2024, after Musk predicted 250,000 per year (and the situation is even worse in 2025). More and more Teslas sport a “I bought this before I knew he was crazy” bumper sticker. This is mainly due to affluent, progressively minded consumers who are Tesla’s natural customers being increasingly turned off. In short, consumers are buying more and more electric vehicles; they are just not buying his electric vehicles.

Musk’s vocal endorsement of Trump has painted him into a corner. He can either continue to support right-wing policies and damage Tesla’s brand or pivot back to what’s better for the company. We saw an attempt at this just days after he left DOGE in May. But, it was too much, too soon, and like a rubber band, it snapped back, and he retracted some of his remarks, lambasting Trump. How well he navigates the coming months and years will not only make or break Tesla but potentially his personal fortune.

Speaking of right-wing billionaire politicians...

From the beginning, Trump’s political persona was built on rebellion. In 2016, he styled himself as an outsider who would rip up the establishment playbook. His pitch was simple: no more endless wars, no more globalism, and no more political correctness. He promised to fight for the forgotten American worker, to protect entitlements, and to punish corrupt elites. It was an unusual cocktail of hardline rhetoric and surprisingly populist messaging, and for a brief moment, it worked.

But as with Musk, that kind of brand only works if you hold the line.

Trump’s recent pivots have created real dissonance. The man who once mocked Bush-era hawks now echoes their language. His early disdain for overseas entanglements has given way to saber-rattling on Iran. Instead of scaling back government overreach, he’s reportedly weighing loyalty tests and weaponizing the federal bureaucracy. At a glance, it looks less like disruption and more like consolidation of power.

This shift hasn’t gone unnoticed. His base, while still vocal, seems wearier. The energy isn’t what it was in 2016. Cross-party support has dried up, and many of the independents who took a chance on him have peeled away. What they signed up for was a wrecking ball, not a mirror image of the old Republican guard. Trump’s brand was always about being different. If he starts to resemble the very people he ran against, the mystique fades. His critics see the same chaos. His supporters start asking questions. That pivot from anti-war to an ill-advised and potentially ineffective missile strike in Iran isn’t just a change in stance. It’s a signal that the brand is wobbling.

Like Musk, Trump is boxed in. He can double down on the hardline shift and risk alienating the swing voters that once gave him a shot, or he can try to recapture the populist energy that brought him to power. In today’s environment, straddling that line is nearly impossible. Tribal loyalty is rigid. Subtlety doesn’t sell. Changing your mind on a policy is perceived as a weakness and betrayal by the wings of your party. There’s no nuance allowed on social media. This isn’t only an issue on the right, Biden and Harris lost support from the left over their stance on Gaza and Harris’ connections with law enforcement. If you’re not 100% in favor of something then you’re 100% against everything.

And the strain is starting to show.

How important is consistency in a political brand? Can someone pivot without losing their base? Would love to hear your thoughts.