Ellie Kemp
The boss of Polestar is telling staff to target 'disillusioned' Tesla customers as he claims they're being put off by Elon Musk's 'pure arrogance'.
The electric vehicle rival, based in Sweden, only started up four years ago.
But its new CEO, Michael Lohscheller, says the richest man in the world's involvement with politics is actually creating an opportunity for his business.
It comes as the Tesla boss, whose net worth is more than $400 billion, was accused of twice making a 'Nazi salute' during Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday (January 20).
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The South African-born entrepreneur has also attempted to interfere in UK and European politics in recent months.
Tesla owners - and potential customers - have since shared plans to deal with the fallout online.
And in an interview with Bloomberg, Lohscheller said: “We get a lot of people writing that they don’t like all this.
“It’s important to listen closely to what they say. And I can tell you, a lot of people have a very, very negative sentiment.”
While Lohscheller did praise Musk, calling him a 'very successful businessman' who had 'done incredible things with Tesla,' he also criticized him for his support of far-right political party, Alternative for Germany.
Lohscheller, who was born in North Rhine-Westphalia, said: “For Germany, somebody outside of Germany endorsing right-wing political parties is a big thing.
“You want to know what I think about it? I think it’s totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.
"You just don’t do that. This is pure arrogance, and these things will not work.”
Lohscheller, who was boss of German carmaker Opel before joining Polestar in October, reckons the latter is set to increase retail sales by as much as 35 percent annually over the next three years.
He's hoping moving to more 'traditional dealership' model and selling new vehicles - including a compact sport utility - will contribute.
In the US, Tesla's stock saw a drop of 3.5 percent this week after Trump repealed a host of EV policies formerly put forward by Joe Biden.
The president had previously agreed to end federal tax credit for EV purchases, too, which cost up to $7,500 for new zero-emission vehicles and also $4,000 for used ones.
While this has understandably knocked investor confidence in the industry, Musk previously didn't appeared too fazed by the decision.
In fact, he agreed with the rollback, reckoning it would only have a 'slight' impact on Tesla.
As per Yahoo! Finance, Musk told analysts back in July,: "I guess that there would be, like, some impact, but I think it would be devastating for our competitors and for Tesla slightly.
“But long term probably actually helps Tesla, would be my guess, yes … the value of Tesla overwhelmingly is autonomy.”
Interestingly, Musk is also part of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is tasked with advising the White House to slash 'federal spending.'
UNILAD has contacted Elon Musk for comment.