Dan Mitchinson: US correspondent on Elon Musk becoming America's least popular public figure

Elon Musk’s reputation has taken a noticeable dive, according to the most recent data.

Gallup surveyed Americans about what they thought of  14 well-known U.S. and global figures, with 61 percent of respondents having an unfavourable opinion of Musk.

US correspondent Dan Mitchinson says that other people in Trump's inner circle also had negative net favourability ratings, with RFK Jr and JD Vance underperforming in the poll. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International Correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of Mind
for New Zealand Business, jan Us Torrest Fund and Hello Dan,
Hey Heather, So what was Donald Trump doing on the
roof of the White House? I couldn't quite figure that out. Well,
that's what everybody was trying to figure out. He took
a twenty minute stroll up there, and all the reporters
were kind of kept at a distance, so everybody was
yelling at him, what are you doing up there? And

(00:22):
he said, just taking a little walk. And then another
reporter said, well, what are you building? And he says,
it goes with a ballroom, and so this went back
and forth, and finally he said. One reporter said what
are you trying to build? And he said missiles, and
we presume he was joking. He said nuclear missiles while
he made a gesture of a rocket launching, which which unfortunately,
is that the one that looked like a Nazi salute? Yes, yeah,

(00:45):
that's that's that's the picture that came up. So he
was kind of going up there like that, and unfortunately,
well or for you know, photographers taking the moment to
capture that sort of one picture, and that's the one
they got and that's the one that's making the rounds. Okay, well,
listen to all of us. Don't imitate a rocket going
up in the air, because next minute you're a fascist. Yes,
what a surprise. Elon Musk is America's most disliked person,

(01:08):
isn't it though. A Gallup took this poll and they
asked people, you know, what they thought of fourteen well
known US and global figures, and sixty one percent had
an unfavorable opinion of Musk, So he came out on top,
which I mean, I mean, his reputation is kind of
plummeted faster than I think Tesla Stock has in recent
months too, with everything going on with him in the
White House. And there are a number of others that

(01:31):
are within the President's orbit I guess that are having
negative fallout from these Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy was
on that list. JD. Vance was on that list as well,
and then you had President Trump, who was further down
the list too, basically given the same rating as a
Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So the poll numbers for

(01:52):
the President have not been looking good, and not just
from Gallup but from a number of different people doing
these polls. Interesting, So the CEO is the problem for
the submersible blowing up? Yeah, the Titan, And what they're
seeing is that the Coast Guard came out with a
report today and said there was also a lot of
financial pressure that began a couple of years back, so
employees were asked to forego their salaries, and among them,

(02:14):
they were saying that they started bringing in contractors rather
than full time skilled people, and they decided to use
text based communication, which I guess isn't as good as
sort of voice communication. So the bottom line, they're saying
that it was an inadequate design, maintenance, inspection process, and
basically there was also this toxic workplace culture which which

(02:36):
kept people from coming up and speaking out about what
was going on. Dan, good to talk to you. Thank
you very much. It's Dan Mitchison, US correspondent. For more
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