Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the US-Saudi Investment Forum held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, USA on Wednesday, November 19, 2025.
Stephanie Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
According to research and consulting firm Brand Finance, Tesla’s brand value will decline by $15.4 billion, or about 36%, in 2025, marking the third consecutive year of annual decline.
Brand Finance CEO David Haig said the lack of innovative new models and the relatively high prices of Tesla’s electric cars compared to competitors had hurt the company’s brand value, as well as Chief Executive Elon Musk’s continued “overreach” into geopolitics and lack of focus on the auto business.
Brand Finance said in its 2026 rankings that Tesla’s brand value now stands at an estimated $27.61 billion. This is down from $43 billion in early 2025, $58.3 billion in 2024, and a peak of $66.2 billion in January 2023.
London-based Brand Finance analyzes the financials of thousands of companies, looking at revenue, licensing agreements, profit margins, and other hard data, and combines those data points with comprehensive consumer research to estimate a brand’s financial value.
Lorenzo Coluzzi, Director of Brand Finance Ratings, said Tesla’s scores have plummeted over the past year on key metrics such as “reputation, recommendation, trust, and coolness,” particularly in Europe and Canada.
The company’s recommendation score in the US has hit a new low of 4.0 out of 10, meaning consumers are reluctant to tell their friends and family to buy a Tesla. The recommendation score for EV manufacturers in the US has previously been as high as 8.2 in 2023.
At least 1,000 respondents from 18 countries answered questions about Tesla.
Consumer familiarity with the Tesla brand in general improved in most markets last year, which was expected as the company is no longer a startup and is expanding its sales geographically, he said.
The company’s loyalty score increased from 90% to 92% in the US in 2025. This shows that customers who own Tesla cars are willing to keep driving them for the next 12 months.
Tesla’s biggest rival BYD It is a rising star in the automotive sector in China, and its brand value has increased by about 23%, or about $17.29 billion, from $14.03 billion last year.
Five other automakers topped Tesla on this year’s list, including Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Porsche, with Toyota being the strongest in the field with an estimated brand value of $62.7 billion.
The dramatic decline in Tesla’s brand value between 2025 and 2026 shows once again that ordinary consumers view Musk’s company in a very different light than Wall Street.
Overall, 2025 was a volatile year for Tesla stock, but it started the year in a positive position as Musk joined President Donald Trump’s White House and became head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which aims to significantly downsize the federal government and cut federal spending.
But Musk’s collaboration with Trump, his inflammatory political rhetoric and support for far-right politicians such as Germany’s anti-immigration party AfD and Britain’s Tommy Robinson sparked a consumer backlash that lasted until 2025.
The loss of federal tax credits for EV purchases in the US has created new business challenges.
But Tesla stock rose late last year after the company’s ride-hailing app and the launch of a pilot robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. Mr. Musk also single-handedly helped Tesla’s stock price recover by purchasing about $1 billion worth of stock in September.
Tesla stock rose about 11% by the end of 2025, hitting a new record in mid-December on news that Tesla was testing an unmanned “self-driving system” or some self-driving cars in Austin.
Tesla is scheduled to discuss fourth-quarter results and plans for the year ahead during a post-market earnings conference on Wednesday. The company previously reported lower vehicle deliveries for the quarter and for the full year.
Investors can submit and vote on questions they would like management to answer during the fourth quarter conference call through Say Technologies’ online forum.
One question that garnered a lot of votes ahead of the call was whether Tesla investors would get special investment access to Mr. Musk’s aerospace and defense company SpaceX, which is aiming to go public this year.
The satellite internet service known as Starlink, a sub-brand of SpaceX, first entered the Brand Finance Top 500 ranking in 2026 and is now worth an estimated $5.19 billion.
Mr. Haig said it was unlikely that Starlink’s improved brand value would translate into a rally for Tesla.
“They are treated completely separately,” he explained.
Brand Finance’s research found that while Musk leads both SpaceX and Tesla, the automaker is valued relative to its peers in the auto sector, and Starlink is valued relative to other internet service providers.
“Starlink has its own proposition at the moment,” Haig said. “However, there are many other companies planning to send out significantly more satellites to compete.”
See the list of Brand Finance Global 500 2026 here.
