Billionaire Elon Musk's popularity has fallen off a cliff — a particularly precipitous decline, because he used to be immensely popular before squandering it.
According to the latest polling averages aggregated by statistician Nate Silver, the richest man in the world's favorability is in free-fall, with a mere 39.4 percent of Americans seeing Musk positively, while a majority of 52.7 percent see him negatively.
In total, that's a net favorability of -11 points — a significant drop since Donald Trump took office at the beginning of the year, when it stood at -3 points, and a stomach-churning plunge from 2016, when his favorability was a glowing +29.
We just launched an Elon Musk popularity tracker to accompany our Trump approval tracker.
Currently, he's at a ?14 as compared with Trump's ?5. pic.twitter.com/X4IIvLIhmk
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 11, 2025
The latest numbers highlight an astonishing degree of disillusionment with Musk's indiscriminate and sloppy slashing of government budgets with the help of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. His embrace of far-right extremist views has also proven extremely polarizing, with the billionaire going as far as to perform two Nazi salutes during Trump's post-inauguration celebration.
Anti-Musk sentiment has risen considerably since then, inspiring an entire movement, called Tesla Takedown, which has seen thousands of people peacefully demonstrating in front of the EV maker's dealerships.
The carmaker has seen its sales plummet as a result across the globe. Many investors have also grown fed up with Musk's antics and refusal to fully commit his time to the company.
How much longer Musk will continue to gut the government remains to be seen. Trump recently suggested he could be out in the coming months.
Experts have since speculated that Musk's unpopularity could be a political liability for the president, who's battling issues with his own favorability. Trump's ratings have dipped this month, following a disastrous rollout of global tariffs.
"Although Musk may eventually leave the government, he’ll remain an exceptionally important and controversial public figure even if he does," Silver wrote. "Until then, he could be a liability for Trump because he’s less popular than the president is even as Trump’s numbers have also declined."
The cracks are already starting to show. After Musk threw $25 million behind Republican judge Brad Schimel, who ran against liberal candidate judge Susan Crawford during a pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court election earlier this month, Crawford beat Schimel handily.
It was a resounding defeat for Musk, who went as far as to hand out $1 million checks to voters in a desperate bid to sway election results.
Could his backfiring political efforts be a sign of what's still to come? Given that he's widely expected to leave his post at DOGE — while potentially falling comically far short of his initial goal of excising $2 trillion from the government budget — it remains to be seen whether surging anti-Musk sentiment will die down again.
But now that Tesla's brand has been raked through the mud, it'll likely take some time for his favorability to recover.
More on Musk: When Elon Musk Hears About Lives He's Destroyed, He Reportedly Responds With Laugh-Cry Emojis
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Huge Number of People Who Used to Like Elon Musk Now Detest Him, Polling Shows
