popularity poll
America really loves Elon Musk
Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed "Technoking of Tesla," tends to accrue his fair share of adversaries online, thanks to his meandering and often controversial Twitter musings, among several other reasons. But it turns out he's actually quite popular among most Americans, a poll conducted by Vox and Data for Progress shows.
The survey, which was aimed at getting a grasp on how American voters feel about billionaires (both generally and individually), found that 50 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Musk, while just 23 percent hold an unfavorable view. Political affiliation doesn't seem to matter much — he got consistent marks across the spectrum, with plus-30, plus-28, and plus-23 percent net-favorable opinions from Democrats, independents, and Republicans, respectively.
The biggest gap was between men and women. Male respondents appear to think quite highly of Musk, with 66 percent viewing him favorably, good for a whopping plus-45 net rating. More women view the Tesla and SpaceEx CEO positively than negatively, but the favorable figure is lower (just 37 percent), and the net-difference is only 10 percentage points.
The Vox/Data for Progress poll was conducted via the internet between Feb. 23-25 among 1,182 likely voters in the United States. The margin of error is three percentage points. Read the full results here.