Sentiment around Elon Musk's Tesla brand has significantly improved from the low levels seen earlier this spring, following a coordinated takedown effort by Democratic-aligned billionaire-funded NGOs, left-wing activist networks, far-left militant groups, progressive lawmakers, and left-leaning corporate media operating in what appeared to be a decentralized manner (really in unison) with one objective: damaging the company's reputation and crush sales to force Musk out of DOGE. 

At the time, Musk was leading the DOGE efforts to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in federal agencies. Democratic-aligned interests and their billionaire funders were infuriated that Musk and the Trump administration disrupted the magic money tree that funneled taxpayer dollars into their nonprofit networks. 

The response mechanism of the same leftist political machinery that targeted Trump for his America First beliefs, such as the BLM riots and other color-revolution-style efforts to delegitimize his presidency, was redirected by left-wing activist networks (protest industrial complex) toward killing Tesla. These operations were shielded behind nonprofits and front groups in a sinister effort called "Tesla Takedown."

From Tesla showrooms getting firebombed by far-left militant groups to leftist politicians rooting for the company's bankruptcy to coordinated protest activity at showrooms and the endless streams of negative press by left-leaning corporate press, painting Musk as quite literally Hitler, the highly coordinated pressure campaign actually did work and crushed consumer sentiment around the brand. 

To visualize this brand-damaging campaign, we turn to Goldman analyst Mark Delaney's latest note on the U.S. auto sector. In it, we find HundredX Net Purchase Intent data, a metric that estimates how likely a consumer (or group of consumers) is to buy a product or service within a given timeframe.

The data show that while NPI had been drifting lower in 2024 due to higher auto-loan rates and slowing EV sales, it began plunging in 1Q25 and didn't bottom until late spring. This sharp dip in NPI coincides with the Tesla Takedown pressure campaign mounted by Democratic-aligned groups to kill the brand.