The Elon Musk Sentiment Shift: 13 Years of Reddit's Perception

We tracked the aggregate sentiment of hundreds of thousands of organic comments mentioning Elon Musk on finance and economics subreddits, from 2014 through mid-2026. The chart below shows the yearly average sentiment, where positive values mean more favourable discussion and negative values mean more critical or hostile conversation.

Below we walk through the timeline using the actual words of Redditors. For each period we highlight representative comments that capture the tone of the moment.

The Early Optimism (2014–2015)

Sentiment: +0.25 in 2014, +0.31 in 2015

Reddit’s financial and tech forums were broadly positive. Tesla was still the scrappy underdog proving EVs could be desirable, and SpaceX was landing its first contracts. Even in these optimistic years, scepticism was present.

“The user, who works in the solar industry, fully agrees with Musk's outlook on the rapid growth and adoption of solar energy.” — r/SelfDrivingCars, 2014

“The user compares Musk to Iron Man while maintaining a skeptical, analytical view of Tesla's current stock valuation.” — r/stocks, 2014

“Elon Musk is viewed as a thought leader who effectively leads by example within a flat hierarchy to incentivize innovation.” — r/Economics, 2014

“The user defends Musk's dismissal of fuel cell technology as 'fool cells' and views him as a target of biased industry critics.” — r/SelfDrivingCars, 2014

“The user dismisses Musk's claims regarding the economic viability of battery farms, arguing they lack a sensible market.” — r/Economics, May 2015

The Turn (2016–2018)

Sentiment: -0.11 in 2016, -0.02 in 2017, -0.22 in 2018

As Tesla scaled and Musk’s public persona grew, the tone shifted. Criticism of missed deadlines, product quality, and questionable leadership began to surface.

“Musk is criticized for prioritizing gimmicky features over the production of simple, reliable vehicles.” — r/electricvehicles, 2016

“The user characterizes Elon Musk as a con artist who fails to generate actual profit.” — r/investing, 2016

“Notes a failure in Musk's ability to provide credible explanations during earnings calls, marking a shift from his usual persuasive hype.” — r/investing, 2017

“The user expresses disappointment and believes Musk committed securities fraud.” — r/investing, 2018

Plateau and Growing Controversy (2019–2021)

Sentiment: -0.22 in 2019, -0.18 in 2020, -0.29 in 2021

Sentiment hovered between -0.18 and -0.29. Praise for real products was increasingly offset by criticism of missed deadlines, erratic tweets, and crypto market interventions.

“The user mocks Musk's tendency to miss deadlines, referring to his habit of delaying projects by years as 'Elon time'.” — r/electricvehicles, 2019

“The user views Musk as an amazing innovator and leader, while simultaneously criticizing his market manipulation tactics.” — r/investing, 2019

“The user mocks the perception held by some fans that Elon Musk is 'saving the world'.” — r/electricvehicles, Jul 2020

“The user views Elon Musk's purchase of Bitcoin and his handling of China-related issues as desperate publicity stunts that signaled a decline in stability.” — r/stocks, Mar 2021

Deepening Divide (2022–2024)

Sentiment: -0.55 in 2022, -0.57 in 2023, -0.58 in 2024

The Twitter acquisition and its aftermath sent sentiment into a tailspin. Even previously neutral subreddits grew sharply critical, though occasional praise for technology still surfaced.

“Highlights a long history of Musk failing to meet promised timeframes for various projects and products.” — r/investing, 2022

“The user believes Musk's brand is being permanently tarnished and enjoys watching his decline.” — r/business, 2023

“The user acknowledges Musk's genius and business success but dislikes him due to his personal character.” — r/electricvehicles, 2023

“Musk's shift to right-wing politics and his disregard for the core EV customer base are negatively impacting Tesla's sales and profit margins.” — r/SelfDrivingCars, 2024

“The user argues that Musk lacks necessary checks and balances and has lost touch with reality.” — r/investing, 2024

All-Time Lows (2025–2026)

Sentiment: -0.70 in 2025, -0.65 in 2026 (partial year)

Sentiment reached its nadir, driven by political entanglements, product delays, and broad consumer backlash. A handful of positive voices remain, but they are drowned out.

“The user accuses Elon Musk of engaging in blatant corruption and leveraging political influence to manipulate Tesla's stock price.” — r/stocks, 2025

“The user expresses frustration with Tesla's recent performance, attributing the failure directly to Elon Musk.” — r/electricvehicles, 2025

“The user implies that supporting Musk is equivalent to endorsing his controversial statements and actions.” — r/electricvehicles, 2026

“The user characterizes Elon Musk's robotics projects as a scam.” — r/robotics, 2026

Methodology Notes

• Comment Snippets: Representative examples selected do not represent a statistically weighted sample.
• Data Cutoff: 2026 values reflect data up to July 18 2026.
• Data came from academic torrent archives and community APIs, filtered with both a fine tuned bert model and an LLM with fine tuned prompt till it matched human results, final sentiment classification is with an LLM too.
• Net worth data is not very accurate more of a guesstimate based on available data online (average each year)