As Musk gained power in Washington, his popularity has fallen, an AP-NORC
poll finds
[April 28, 2025]
By CHRIS MEGERIAN and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX
WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk spent years building cachet as a business
titan and tech visionary, brushing aside critics and skeptics to become
the richest person on the planet.
But as Musk gained power in Washington in recent months, his popularity
has waned, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for
Public Affairs Research.
Just 33% of U.S. adults have a favorable view of Musk, the
chain-saw-wielding, late-night-posting, campaign-hat-wearing public face
of President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal
government. That share is down from 41% in December.
“It was a shame that he crashed and burned his reputation,” said Ernest
Pereira, 27, a Democrat who works as a lab technician in North Carolina.
“He bought into his own hype.”
The poll found that about two-thirds of adults believe Musk has held too
much influence over the federal government during the past few months —
although that influence may be coming to an end. The billionaire
entrepreneur is expected to leave his administration job in the coming
weeks.
Musk is noticeably less popular than the overall effort to pare back the
government workforce, which Trump has described as bloated and corrupt.
About half of U.S. adults believe the Republican president has gone too
far on reducing the size of the federal workforce, while roughly 3 in 10
think he is on target and 14% want him to go even further.
Retiree Susan Wolf, 75, of Pennsylvania, believes the federal government
is too big but Musk has “made a mess of everything.”
“I don’t trust him,” she said. “I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.”
Wolf, who is not registered with a political party, said Musk’s private
sector success does not translate to Washington.
“He thinks you run a government like you run a business. And you don’t
do that,” she said. “One is for the benefit of the people, and the other
is for the benefit of the corporation.”
Much of the downsizing has been done through so-called the Department of
Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which was Musk’s brainchild during last
year’s campaign. Thousands of federal employees have been fired or
pushed to quit, contracts have been canceled and entire agencies have
been brought to a standstill.
Musk has succeeded in providing a dose of shock therapy to the federal
government, but he has fallen short of other goals. After talking about
cutting spending by $1 trillion, he has set a much lower target of $150
billion. Even reaching that amount could prove challenging, and DOGE has
regularly overstated its progress.
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President Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk, joined by his son X Æ
A-Xii, speaks in the Oval Office at the White House, Feb. 11, 2025,
in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
He is expected to start dedicating more time to Tesla, his electric
automaker that has suffered plummeting revenue while he was working
for Trump. Musk told investors on a recent conference call that “now
that the major work of establishing the Department of Government
Efficiency is done,” he expects to spend just “a day or two per week
on government matters.”
Musk, in his work for the administration, has continued a political
evolution toward the right. Although the South African-born
entrepreneur was never easy to categorize ideologically, he
championed the fight against climate change and often supported
Democratic candidates.
Now he criticizes “the woke mind virus” and warns of the collapse of
Western civilization from the threats of illegal migration and
excess government spending.
Musk’s increasingly conservative politics are reflected in the
polling. Only about 2 in 10 independents and about 1 in 10 Democrats
view Musk favorably, compared with about 7 in 10 Republicans.
In addition, while about 7 in 10 independents and about 9 in 10
Democrats believe Musk has too much influence, only about 4 in 10
Republicans feel that way.
Mark Collins, 67, a warehouse manager from Michigan who has leaned
Republican in recent years, said Musk “runs a nice, tight ship” at
his companies, “and the government definitely needs tightening up.”
“He’s cleaning up all the trash,” he said. “I love what he’s doing.”
Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to be worried about
being affected by recent cuts to federal government agencies,
services or grants. Just 11% said they are “extremely” or “very”
concerned that they or someone they know will be affected, while
about two-thirds of Democrats and 44% of independents have those
fears.
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,260 adults was conducted April 17-21, using a
sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which
is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin
of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage
points.
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