Tesla deliveries down 43% in Europe while EVs are up 31%

This much? Hard to say. I'd say Kanye had a steep fall. Joe Rogaine is on his way, but a much slower trajectory. The ex-PM of Canada, Trudeau, definitely did some damage to his popularity over time.

But these are all kind of dime a dozen examples of brand destruction compared to how much Elon has hurt the Tesla brand, IMO.

It's beyond Tesla. The thing that really worries me is that he's linked the concept of space exploration and settlement to himself in many peoples' minds, discrediting the idea by linking it to inane 4chan /pol politics.

The human future in space is important and needs a better champion.

He's massively empowered the worst elements of the left and the right, which of course feed on each other. On the right he's reviving fascism and race science, and on the left he's giving tremendous ammunition to the "anti-everything" crowd. "See! human ambition is fascist! stop everything now!"

He was, for a time, the antidote to that, a liberal who built things and seemed to believe in a better future.

I'm not sure he was ever a liberal. Maybe a libertarian, for a time.

Today, he spends his time empowering the worst habits of the ultra right and ultra left.

We need modest centrists with no egos driving us towards things like space exploration. Not whatever dystopian space-time trajectory we're on today.

Kim Stanley Robinson owns Mars colonisation now and forever!