- Elon Musk has quickly risen in the annual Brand Guardianship Index that ranks the world's 100 best CEOs. Love him or hate him for his strident political views, his ability to drive long-term value seemingly at will has garnered him a top spot.
Elon Musk is a far better steward of his companies now than he was a year ago, according to the results of an annual survey conducted by UK research firm Brand Finance.
The Tesla CEO vaulted to sixth place out of 100 chief executives employed at multinational corporations around the world, a sharp improvement from 19th in the previous year. This stemmed in part from perceptions the entrepreneur is far better than peers at delivering long-term value to shareholders.
“He is seen as a champion of sustainability and long-term thinking—both a reflection of his status as a visionary mastermind,” Brand Finance’s Annie Brown said in comments to Fortune on Wednesday. As the UK firm’s valuation director, she is in charge of the Brand Guardianship Index (BGI) ranking the world’s top CEOs.
When measured strictly against other peers in the automobile industry, he bests them across all image attributes save for the category of "Trustworthiness."
Rising to sixth place in such a short time frame is unusual: just two years ago Musk didn’t even make the list due to the troubled start of his Twitter acquisition.
There were only five CEOs in total who were ranked higher. In ascending order they were Google’s Sundar Pichai in 5th place, Benedetto Vigna of Ferrari surprisingly coming in fourth, followed respectively by Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Apple’s Tim Cook and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella at No.1.
The biggest fall from grace was Huateng "Pony" Ma, founder and CEO of Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent, who tumbled from first down to 24th place this year.
The ranking was tabulated over the course of several weeks from a survey of 700 analysts and investors across more than two dozen countries starting in November. A further 4,180 members of the general public—all university educated, fully employed and interested in business and finance—were polled for their response as well.
Surprising improvement in view of repeated controversies
Just like any massive international study, questions must be standardized so they are applicable across people, countries and industries. As a result, there is bound to be a level of granularity that's missing. The research firm cannot therefor extrapolate from the answers the precise management decisions that may have helped or hurt Musk.
For example, it seems doubtful that his rash decision last April to sack his entire Supercharger team would have played much of a role in a survey conducted months later. By comparison, his historic achievement with SpaceX in October is likely to have been more front-of-mind.
Musk’s jump in the ranking is surprising for two other reasons. Most obviously, Brand Finance only earlier this week judged Tesla to have lost $15 billion in brand value. And that wasn’t the only Musk company hurt by his choices.
“Elon is an outlier, given that he destroyed about $3 billion in brand value with the overnight change of Twitter to X,” concedes Brown.
Nonetheless a host of reasons can factor into the overall ranking, including awareness—something that Musk definitely doesn’t lack. Another element that plays a role particularly among industry analysts is clarity in objective.
“They certainly get that from Musk,” Brown adds. “He is not only outspoken on free speech but has gone to great lengths to put into action long term change.”
It's hard to deny Musk's impact on the world
A second reason the improvement in his rank is so surprising is that Musk has become a deeply divisive figure both at home and abroad due to his controversial political views and verbal meltdowns.
After helping Donald Trump, a convicted felon, back into the Oval Office after he tried to subvert the 2020 election, Musk has moved on to shake up the political establishment in Europe.
For example he managed to breathe fresh life into the long dormant subject of Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs that operated in Northern England well over a decade ago, putting it at the very top of the daily UK political agenda.
He even called personally for King Charles to sack the government just six months after elections were held—an unprecedented (and also impossible to deliver) demand, especially coming from a foreigner.
Consequently it’s hard to meet someone who doesn’t have a strong opinion about the tycoon. For his brands this is both a boon and a bane, as he is so closely associated with his companies.
“Love or hate Musk,” says Brown, “it is hard to deny his influence and ability to generate value in brands where it suits him to do so.”
