Dem
51
GOP
49
There are numerous products out there meant to be the "conservative" version of... whatever the thing is. For example, Black Rifle is trying to be THE coffee for conservatives, Jeremy's Razors is trying to be THE razor for conservatives, Conservative Dad's Ultra Right Beer is trying to be THE beer for conservatives, etc. None of these products has been a wild success.
There is an even worse business plan than just being the [X] for conservatives, however, and that is being the [X] for conservatives when a big chunk of the people who buy [X] are actually politically liberal. That is why there's no conservative-branded gluten-free granola, or organic Kombucha, or PVC-free yoga mat.
It would seem that, despite being the richest man in the world, Elon Musk did not get this message. Recall that his primary business concern is Tesla, which makes... electric vehicles. And recall that a sizable segment of electric vehicle purchasers are folks of a liberal stripe. Well, when Musk decided to go all-in on anti-woke and pro-Trump, garnished with generous helpings of conspiratorial thinking, antisemitism, racism, and homophobia, that did not sit well with the people who make up much of his would-be client base.
The impact of this was very clear in last year's sales figures. Democrats were responsible for roughly 40% of U.S. Tesla purchases up through October of last year (with independents responsible for a similar fraction, and Republicans buying the remaining 20%). By December of last year, the Democratic share was down to 15%. While there were more purchases by non-Democrats, they weren't enough to make up for the lost Democratic sales, and so the company's overall sales were down for Q4 of 2023.
Since then, as you may have noticed, Musk has largely shut his yap. And Democratic purchases of Teslas have gone back up; members of the blue team are currently making up about 30% of the mix. The upshot, between this item and the previous one, is that the culture wars make this a particularly tough time to be in business. That's doubly or triply true if you are someone like Musk, and insist on being the center of attention much of the time. (Z)