Elon Musk, the owner of X, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and head of President Trump’s DOGE cost-cutting initiative, is less popular than Trump at the moment.
According to a new CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday, about 53% of Americans said they have an “unfavorable opinion” of the billionaire, compared with 35% who have a positive view and 9% offering no opinion (and 2% saying they have “never heard” of Musk).
By comparison, Trump’s overall favorability rating was 45% and his unfavorability rating was 52%, according to the poll, which was in line with Trump’s highest ratings for his first term in office. Meanwhile, about Vice President JD Vance, 44% of Americans polled have an unfavorable opinion, 33% rated him favorably and 23% had no opinion. The poll was conducted March 6-9.
The poll found that 62% of U.S. adults agree that Musk does not have the “right experience” to make changes to the way the government works and 61% said he does not have the “right judgment” to do so.
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In a post on his Truth Social platform Wednesday, Trump wrote, “Wow!!! People are loving Elon, a GREAT PATRIOT. Nice to see!!! DJT.”
Triggered by the dramatic shutdowns and layoffs enacted by DOGE, Musk’s Tesla electric vehicle company has been the target of vandalism and protests across the U.S. and abroad in recent weeks. On Monday, X (formerly Twitter) experienced rolling outages, which Musk blamed on a “massive cyberattack” that he claimed was launched from IP addresses originating in “the Ukraine region.”
On Tuesday, Trump provided a public show of support for Musk and Tesla at the White House. The president said he would buy a Tesla and joined Musk in checking out several of the automaker’s models that were brought in for the photo op. At the event, Musk said that “As a function of the great policies of President Trump and his administration, and as an act of faith in America, Tesla is going to double vehicle output in the United States within the next two years.”
Musk, who spent almost $300 million supporting Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign through the America PAC, has “signaled” to the president’s advisers that he wants to put $100 million into “groups controlled by the Trump political operation,” per a New York Times report Tuesday.
The CNN poll was conducted via web and telephone by research company SSRS using a nationally representative panel of U.S. adults ages 18 or older. Surveys were obtained March 6-9, 2025, with a representative sample of 1,206 respondents; the margin of sampling error for total respondents is +/-3.3 at the 95% confidence level, according to SSRS.