I just popped open an incognito window and searched “best electric cars” and checked the top ten results: all of which mentioned Tesla, and only one of which mentioned Musk. And that mention was “say what you will about…,” which is fairly noncommittal about who he is or what he does. Most people aren’t scrolling Reddit or Twitter or especially Lemmy all the time; they Google a question, and when they get the answer they think “oh, I’ve heard of a Tesla, my buddy Jeff has one” and so they go ask Jeff whether he likes it or not.
Now, in 2024, his name is probably far more recognizable. But five years ago, especially before he bought Twitter? If they did see his name, it would probably have brought associations of rockets if anything.
Or look at the Google Trends results for his name. There’s a spike in May 2020 (when his baby with Grimes was born), a slight bump in 2021 when he was on SNL, and a huge spike in 2022 when he was forced to buy Twitter. Aside from that, the interest in Tesla has always been much higher than the interest in Musk, and people have been less curious about him than about Taylor Swift (for instance).
People just don’t care about the CEOs of most companies they buy stuff from.