The value of the Tesla brand dropped by around 36% in 2025, marking the third annual decline according to research and valuation consultancy Brand Finance.
Brand Finance CEO David Haigh said the US$15.4 billion loss in value could be attributed to a lack of innovation, the high price of Tesla’s products compared to the rest of the market, as well as Tesla CEO’s “overreach” in geopolitics, pulling his attention from the auto business.
According to Brand Finance, the company now stands at an estimated $27.61 billion.
This is a decrease from $43 billion at the start of 2025, $58.3 billion in 2024 and its peak of $66.2 billion in January 2023.
Brand Finance Valuation Director Lorenzo Coruzzi said that Tesla lost out on key measures like “reputation, recommendation, trust, and coolness”, particularly in Europe and Canada.
The EV maker’s recommendation score in the U.S. reached a new low of 4.0 out of 10, a far cry from its previously high score of 8.3 out of 10 in 2023.
However, loyalty scores rose from 90% to 92% in the U.S. in 2025, indicating that pre-existing customers are likely to keep driving Teslas for the next 12 months.
The company’s most significant rival, BYD in China, gained around 23% to about $17.29 billion, up from $14.03 billion last year.
The Chinese competitor also beat out Tesla as the world’s largest EV seller for 2025, following two consecutive years of sales declines for Tesla.
Tesla said it delivered 1.64 million vehicles compared with 1.79 million in 2024.
In comparison, BYD said sales of its battery-powered cars rose nearly 28% to 2.26 million units.
On Brand Finance’s rankings, five other automakers outranked Tesla, including Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Porsche.
Toyota was the strongest in the sector with an estimated brand value of $62.7 billion.
Last year was a tumultuous year for Tesla, with shares beginning to decline when Musk began his unofficial role directing the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and his affiliation with right-wing ideals brought down the company’s sales.
Things began to turn around for Tesla when Musk stepped away from DOGE in late April, when he said he would focus on the automaker, causing stocks to climb by 5%.
Tesla’s share price gained about 11% by the end of 2025, with new records emerging in mid-December after the company said it was testing “automated driving systems,” or some autonomous vehicles in Austin, without any occupants.
While a sub-brand of Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink, cracked the Brand Finance top 500 rankings for the first time in 2026 with an estimated value of US$5.19 billion, Haigh said it's unlikely its rising brand value will help Tesla.
“They’re treated entirely separately,” he said.
At the time of writing, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock was down 0.99% to US$430.90. Over the past year, its shares have increased by 9.14% but dipped 5.88% since the start of 2026.
The company's market cap is US$41.43 trillion.
