A survey result has shown that public sentiment is more unfavorable towards Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg than Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk.
On the 23rd, looking at the survey results from the U.S. polling firm Pew Research Center conducted from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, 54% of U.S. adults expressed negative views about Musk, while 67% revealed negative opinions about Zuckerberg.
However, it was reported that 26% of respondents viewed Zuckerberg as very unfavorable and 41% as unfavorable, while Musk had a very unfavorable rating of 36% and an unfavorable rating of 18%, indicating a higher percentage of very unfavorable views towards Musk.
The positive views for Zuckerberg stood at 25%, with 23% expressing favorable opinions and only 2% indicating very favorable sentiments. In contrast, Musk had 31% favorable opinions and 11% very favorable opinions. Pew Research Center noted that Musk generally received favorable opinions from Republicans, while Democrats largely expressed unfavorable opinions, resulting in a highly polarized outcome; however, the majority of both parties expressed negative views about Zuckerberg.
Including 84% of conservative Republicans, 73% of Republicans and independent voters with Republican leanings held favorable views of Musk. This contrasted significantly with only 12% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters expressing favor. Additionally, 85% of Democrats responded that they had an unfavorable opinion of Musk. Among them, 67% of adults under 30 showed negative views about Musk, followed by 53% of those aged 30 to 49, and 49% of those 50 and older.
In Zuckerberg's case, 60% of Republicans and 76% of Democrats expressed negative views. Among adults under 30, 70% indicated unfavorable opinions, while 72% of those aged 30 to 49 also expressed disfavor. For those aged 50 and older, the figure was 62%.
Musk is the CEO of Tesla and X (formerly Twitter). He currently leads the Department of Efficiency in Government, which is seeking to reduce federal expenditures under the Trump administration. Zuckerberg is the chairman and CEO of Meta, which owns social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram. He is currently embroiled in political controversy, including a recent decision to halt fact-checking on the Meta platform.
Previous research by Pew Research Center indicated that Americans generally feel that social media companies hold too much power in U.S. politics.