The entrepreneur Elon Musk repeatedly makes extreme statements. The drugstore chain Rossmann no longer wants to buy Tesla cars because of this. The issue is dividing the nation.
Billionaire Elon Musk supports populist positions of US presidential candidate Donald Trump on his platform “X” (formerly Twitter), criticizes the actions of the British authorities against right-wing extremist riots as a “civil war” and asks sympathetic questions to Björn Höcke of the AfD. The drugstore chain Rossmann has now had enough of this – and its decision has received a lot of attention: in future, it will no longer buy vehicles from its electric car brand Tesla because of Musk’s extreme statements.
A narrow majority views Elon Musk critically
Stern commissioned Forsa to conduct a survey to find out how Germans view a Tesla boycott: 47 percent of citizens think it is right. 37 percent think that such a decision is unjustified. A larger minority of 16 percent do not want to or cannot comment on the matter. The question therefore divides the nation, but supporters of a purchase ban are in the relative majority.
Voters of the Greens (72 percent), the SPD (61 percent) and the CDU/CSU (47 percent) in particular think a Tesla boycott is right. Supporters of the FDP (44 percent), the Sahra Wagenknecht coalition (47 percent) and – most strongly – the AfD (67 percent) are particularly critical of a politically motivated purchase ban. This is consistent with the fact that in East Germany, where the AfD receives a particularly large number of votes, the vote on Musk is split: 41 percent think a boycott is right and 41 percent think it is wrong.
Raoul Rossmann, spokesman for the drugstore chain’s management, had explicitly addressed the contradiction between Musk’s statements and the role of electromobility in a press release: “Elon Musk makes no secret of his support for Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly called climate change a hoax – this attitude is in stark contrast to Tesla’s mission to contribute to environmental protection through the production of electric cars.”
The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute forsa for stern and RTL Deutschland on August 8 and 9, 2024 by telephone. Data basis: 1001 respondents. This makes the survey representative. Statistical error tolerance: +/- 3 percentage points
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
