> personally, my purchase decisions do not include the personality or celebrity of the company (CEO or otherwise). This is a normal hacker news commenter posit

> personally, my purchase decisions do not include the personality or celebrity of the company (CEO or otherwise). This is a normal hacker news commenter position, but not a normal consumer position. One of the first things you learn in a freshman year marketing course is the fact that consumers in general make spending decisions on feeling, not on raw data. It's the reason commercials you see on television are all about vibes, and not remotely about the raw performance numbers. See also: Apple never wastes its time droning on about the specs of their devices in their commercials. This is why the public persona of Tesla's CEO has a material impact on the company's sales, and why it's hurting the company. I'd argue that Musk has outright disdain for his customers and considers them 'woke,' and is enthusiastically running the company into the ground out of pure spite.