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Tesla for years had more repeat U.S. customers than any other major automotive brand but its loyalty has plunged since CEO Elon Musk endorsed President Donald Trump last summer, according to data from research firm S&P Global Mobility shared exclusively with Reuters. The data, which has not been previously reported, shows Teslas customer loyalty peaked in June 2024, when 73% of Tesla-owning households in the market for a new car bought another Tesla, according to an S&P analysis of vehicle-registration data in all 50 states. That industry-leading brand loyalty rate started to nosedive in July, that data showed, when Musk endorsed Trump following an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on the Republican nominee. The rate bottomed out at 49.9% last March, just below the industry average, after Musk launched Trumps budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency in January and started firing thousands of government workers. Tesla’s U.S. loyalty rate has since ticked back up to 57.4% in May, the most recent month the S&P data is available, putting it back above the industry average and about the same as Toyota but behind Chevrolet and Ford. S&P analyst Tom Libby called it “unprecedented” to see the runaway leader in customer loyalty fall so quickly to industry-average levels. “Ive never seen this rapid of a decline in such a short period of time,” he said. Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. On Monday, Tesla granted Musk 96 million shares worth about $29 billion, a move aimed at keeping the billionaire entrepreneur at the helm as he fights a court ruling that voided his original pay deal for being unfair to shareholders. The timing of Tesla’s plunging brand loyalty suggests the CEO’s involvement in politics turned off customers in the EV pioneer’s eco-conscious customer base, some analysts said. “If they have Democratic leanings, then perhaps they consider other brands in addition to Tesla,” said Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar. Tesla’s aging model lineup also faces stiffer competition from an array of EVs from legacy automakers including General Motors, Hyundai and BMW. The only new model Tesla has released since 2020, its triangular Cybertruck, has proved a flop despite Musks prediction of hundreds of thousands of annual sales. On an April earnings call, Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja singled out “the negative impact of vandalism and unwarranted hostility towards our brand and people,” but also said there were “several weeks of lost production” when the company retooled factories to produce a refreshed version of its top-selling Model Y. Musk on the April call said that “absent macro issues, we don’t see any reduction in demand.” Tesla vehicle sales overall are falling globally and have declined 8% in the United States the first five months of 2025, according to S&P. Sales fell 33% over the first six months of the year in Europe, where public backlash to Musks politicking has been particularly fierce. Musk’s increased political activism was “very bad timing” for Tesla, said Garrett Nelson, an analyst who tracks the EV maker at CFRA Research, because it came exactly as the company faced heightened competition from Chinese EV makers and other traditional automakers. He said his top concerns for Tesla are its loss of market share and “what can be done to repair the brand damage.” LOYALTY NOSEDIVE Tesla remains the U.S. electric-vehicle sales leader but has seen its dominance erode as Musk last year delved into politics and focused Tesla more on developing self-driving technology than on new affordable models for human drivers. Customer loyalty is a closely watched auto-industry metric because it is much more expensive to take new customers from competitors than to retain existing ones, said S&Ps Libby. S&P offers some of the most detailed industry data on automotive purchases because it analyzes vehicle registration data from all 50 states on a household-by-household basis. Unlike survey data, it follows actual vehicle transactions to track how consumers migrate among brands and models. From the fourth quarter of 2021 through the third quarter of last year, more than 60% of Tesla-owning households bought another one for their next car purchase, the data show. Only one other brand Ford posted a quarterly loyalty rate exceeding 60% during the period, and only once. CUSTOMER DEFECTIONS S&Ps data also examines another aspect of the automotive market: Which brands and models are taking customers away from others, and which ones are losing them? Until recently, Tesla was in a different stratosphere than other automotive brands on this metric. For the four years prior to July 2024, Tesla, on average, acquired nearly five new households for every one it lost to another brand. No other brand from a major automaker was even close: Hyundai’s luxury Genesis brand was the next best, acquiring on average 2.8 households for every one it lost, followed by Kia and Hyundai, which acquired on average 1.5 and 1.4 households, respectively, for every one they lost. Ford, Toyota and Honda lost more households on average than they gained during that period. Teslas average inflow of customers started to decline in July 2024 along with its loyalty rate. Since February, Tesla has been gaining fewer than two households for every one it loses to the rest of the industry, its lowest level ever, according to the data. The data shows clearly that the net migration to Tesla is slowing, Libby said. Brands that now attract more Tesla customers than they lose to Tesla include Rivian, Polestar, Porsche and Cadillac, the data show. Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Tesla investor Zacks Investment Management, said he isnt concerned about Teslas long-term earnings because he expects enormous profits from its plans to operate robotaxis and license self-driving technology to other automakers. Tesla launched a small test of robotaxis in Austin in June, giving rides to hand-picked fans and Internet personalities but the service isnt available to the general public. If Tesla succeeds in expanding the technology, Mulberry said, theres a case to be made that Tesla doesnt need to sell cars and trucks anymore. Chris Kirkham, Reuters
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Air taxi company Joby Aviation has reached an agreement to acquire the urban air mobility passenger business from Blade, the helicopter rideshare service, in a deal worth as much as $125 million. The acquisition includes Blades brand and passenger business, which operates in the United States and Europe. The deal will give Joby access to Blades infrastructure, routes, and customers as it gears up to launch its eVTOL vehicles in the sky. Late last year, Joby said it had entered into its final stage of the certification process with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a step it said will pave the way for commercial service. In a press release on Monday, it said gaining control of Blade’s infrastructure will allow it to eventually transition passengers from traditional helicopters to Joby’s air taxis. Shares of Joby Aviation (NYSE: JOBY) hit a record high of $20.33 in early trading on Monday. Although the air taxi space is still considered speculative, the stock up more than 152% year to date. Blade Air Mobility (NASDAQ: BLDE) saw its stock price rise around 29% on Monday’s news. “This is a strategically important acquisition that will support the successful launch of Jobys commercial operations in Dubai, our subsequent global rollout and our continued leadership in the sector,” JoeBen Bevirt, Joby’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. As part of the deal, Joy will gain Blades network of 12 terminals, including a dedicated lounge and terminal bases at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Newark Liberty Airport (EWR), as well spots on Manhattan’s east and west sides and near Wall Street in Lower Manhattan Blades medical division will rebrand as Strata Blade plans to focus its efforts on its medical services and logistics business, which were not included in Joby’s acquisition. Blades medical division will remain a separate public company and be renamed as Strata Critical Medical (Strata). Joby will become the preferred eVTOL partner to Blades organ transport business, and Strata will gain access to Jobys vehicles. The deal is expected to close in the coming weeks. A new ticker for Strata will be announced at a later date.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Builders FirstSource, the largest U.S. supplier of building materials and prefabricated components, is valued at $14 billion. Given that it takes orders and makes deliveries to builders across the nation, few firms have a more comprehensive view of both multifamily and single-family construction. Thats why its notable that Builders FirstSource CEO Peter Jackson went out of his way on Thursday to suggest to Wall Street analysts that commentary coming from giant publicly traded homebuilders this earnings season was underplaying softening and softness in residential construction. There were a lot of public homebuilders that have released [earnings] over the past couple of weeks [that reported relatively more positive pictures], versus kind of our signal here that it’s a bit worse than what people are thinking, Jackson told analysts on the company’s July 31 earnings call. Jackson added: Given the inventory environment and what we’re seeing in terms of the land market, what we’re hearing about the takedowns and the contracts, our sense is builders are slowing on the start side . . . Our sense is that slowing, that resetting to a lower [housing starts] rate in order to manage those completed home inventory levels, that’s what’s going to flow through. So that’s the slowing indication that you’ve got from us. This weaker housing demand environment is causing unsold completed inventoryin particular, in the Sun Beltto tick up. Indeed, since the Pandemic Housing Boom fizzled out, the number of unsold, completed U.S. new single-family homes has been rising: June 2018 > 62,000 June 2019 > 79,000 June 2020 > 66,000 June 2021 > 34,000 June 2022 > 38,000 June 2023 > 69,000 June 2024 > 99,000 June 2025 > 119,000 The June figure (119,000 unsold, completed new homes) published this week is the highest level since July 2009 (126,000). To put the number of unsold, completed new single-family homes into historic context, we have ResiClubs Finished Homes Supply Index (see chart above). The index is one simple calculation: the number of unsold, completed U.S. new single-family homes divided by the annualized rate of U.S. single-family housing starts. A higher index score indicates a softer national new construction market with greater supply slack, while a lower index score signifies a tighter new construction market with less supply slack. If you look at unsold, completed single-family new builds as a share of single-family housing starts (see chart below), it still shows we’ve gained slack / single-family construction demand is softening. However, it puts us closer to pre-pandemic 2019 levels than the Great Financial Crisis bust. That said, if new construction or the economy hit a big speed bump and housing starts dropped by 20% to 30%, this ratio would spike quicklyeven if unsold builds didnt increase much. Much of the completed unsold single-family new builds is located in pockets of the Sun Beltin states like Florida, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and Tennessee. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); According to ResiClubs statistical analysis, there is a modest to moderate correlation between recent single-family permitting levels and active inventory rising above pre-pandemic 2019 levels. In other words, many of the places where single-family homebuilders have the strongest presence are also the housing markets that have experienced the greatest recent softening. If you talk to homebuilders in Cleveland, Boston, or New Haven, youre likely to hear a very different story right now than from their peers in Tampa, Austin, and San Antonio.
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