Tesla sales could be saved by learning air disasters

While Tesla sees sales of chat and the lack of investors who are missing, marketing experts claim that CEO Elon Musk has pushed the precise political demography, mainly likely to buy its vehicles – and that the path to recovery may not be easy.

In addition to Musk selling his 13% participation in Tesla or ceasing its political activities, brand experts told Business Insider that this could be a good idea for Tesla to change her name and logo to leave her past – a common practice for airlines after major disasters.

“Tesla is more politically biased than any other brand, and it is clearly biased liberal,” said David J. Reibstein, marketing teacher at the Wharton school, “and they have successfully alienated their customers.”

Musk attracted public ire for its involvement with the White House office, which quickly dismissed tens of thousands of federal workers, programs in danger such as social security and causes of persons in danger. The environmental protection agency alone has canceled more than 400 subsidies under DOGE.

“Many people who bought Teslas are those who are concerned about climate change. Many Republicans do not believe in climate change, and therefore trying to bring some of the Republicans to replace Democrats as customers is a big step forward,” added Reibstein.

Not only are Tesla exhibition halls around the world regularly surrounded by demonstrators of the Tesla Takedown movement, but the company also reported a 13% drop in quarterly sales in the United States between January and March compared to the same period in 2024. This marks Tesla’s lowest performance since the beginning of 2022.

In Europe, Tesla lost more than 40% of its sales in January and February compared to the same two months of last year.

Tesla blamed the slowdown in the reconfigurations of the production line before refreshing the planned model. However, his stock market also suggests that investors are concerned about Musk’s commitment to the company, given the focus on Doge.

The closure of the market on April 4, Tesla’s shares had already lost around 36% of their value since the beginning of 2025. Vice-president JD Vance said Thursday that Musk’s work in the White House “is not even close to finished” and that he will remain a “friend and advisor” of the administration.

The danger of a brand with a face

Although there have been individual acts of vandalism against Tesla exhibition halls and cars, many Tesla organizers defended peaceful demonstrations and concentrate heat on musk. For them, a boycott against Tesla cars is more a tool for creating pressure and financial damage to musk than paint cybertrucks for spraying.

Dan IvesA Wedbush Securities analyst who has always been optimistic about Tesla’s long -term prospects, wrote in a joint note in March that the manufacturer of VE “crosses a crisis” and faces a “decisive chapter”.

He added that he thinks that Musk is the “person who can repair it” and that the result depends on musk.

The brand’s experts said that having one person represents a brand, like Musk, represents Tesla, is at best risk and at worst a passive.

“100% of Tesla’s communication today in Europe is created by the buzz around Musk,” said Bi Jean-Noel Kapferer, professor emeritus of marketing at HEC Paris. Kapferer said Musk made Tesla cars a “negative luxury” and leads some to call the company “Tesmusk”.

“A brand is built by customers, not businesses,” said Marty Neumeier, author and director of the CEO of Liquid Agency. “Thus, when Musk seemed to move from a” progressive genius “to an” arrogant tyrant “, putting himself above the car and his customers, he changed the meaning of the brand.”

Take a page of airlines

Marketing experts say it is not too late for Tesla to be rebounded, but most of the routes to recovery may require significant musk concessions.

Lars Perner, deputy professor of clinical marketing at the University of Southern California, told Bi that the most obvious solution would be that Musk sends his actions and allowed someone less visible to take over as CEOs. This decision could make Tesla “to be worth much more” without “the alienation of the main market” of Musk.

Reibstein, the Wharton professor, said that another solution would be that Tesla changes its name and logo – essentially taking a page of the airline gaming book that have experienced major accidents.

For example, after an accident at Valujet Airlines in 1996 in Florida killed the 110 passengers on board, the company acquired Airtran Airways and simply took the name of the new acquisition.

The company’s airlines became air regions when a flight crashed into Missouri and resulted in 13 deaths in October 2004.

In 2014, Malaysia Airlines planned to rename herself after losing two planes – the MH370 flight, which disappeared on the Indian Ocean, and the MH17 flight, which was shot in the east of Ukraine by pro -Russian separatists.

Ryanair, one of the world’s largest airlines in the world, renamed its Boeing 737 Max Jets “737-8200” in 2019 after 2 fatal accidents frightened customers.

Reibstein said one of the rare examples he could think of when a brand so closely linked to a tarnished name rebounded without really distant from his past was when Martha Stewart – eponymous to his interior decoration and the Empire of Culinary Products – was sentenced to federal investigators.

“Everyone provided that it would be the disappearance of the brand when it went to prison,” said Reibstein. “But when she returned, she was able to rehabilitate the brand.”

Aside from the solutions that depend mainly on Musk, Neumeier said that Cybertruck, the vehicle dressed in stainless steel which has already faced several reminders, must also go there.

“For most customers, it seems that it came from another planet, and not a beautiful,” said cybertrucks, “it is now the de facto symbol of the American fascism ”, as some call Musk’s vision for the future.”