Accepting a position on a presidential advisory board isn’t usually a controversial decision for any C.E.O., but in the era of Donald Trump, anything that can be construed as supporting the president has become polarizing, especially in Silicon Valley. Uber endured this lesson firsthand last month when it stumbled in its response to Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries and halting the acceptance of refugees. While New York City taxi drivers declared a work stoppage at J.F.K. to protest the order, Uber announced that it would drop its surge pricing at the airport—a move that was viewed widely online as an attempt to break the strike. That was almost certainly not the intent: C.E.O. and co-founder Travis Kalanick quickly issued a statement condemning the ban and offering financial support to “thousands” of drivers whom Trump’s executive order could affect. But the damage was done: soon afterward, the $69 billion ride-hailing company endured a social-media boycott that resulted in some 200,000 users deleting their accounts. Many tweeted screenshots of themselves getting rid of the app as hashtags like #DeleteUber and #BoycottUber went viral. Others said they would switch to Lyft, which publicized a $1 million donation to the A.C.L.U. amid the blowback.

Kalanick eventually stepped down from his seat on Trump’s economic advisory council, but his counterpart, Tesla C.E.O. Elon Musk, endured a far different outcome. Musk, whose enrollment prompted less outrage, ably defended his decision to stay on Trump’s board. “Advisory councils simply provide advice, and attending does not mean that I agree with actions by the Administration,” Musk tweeted. “I understand the perspective of those who object to my attending this meeting, but I believe at this time that engaging on critical issues will on balance serve the greater good.”

Some at Uber, according to Bloomberg, found the double standard unfair: why did Uber get subjected to scrutiny and consumer outrage, and how did Tesla manage to avoid it? “In private conversations, senior management and investors have groused that Musk has emerged unscathed from his associations with a divisive president and his membership on the same business advisory group that Kalanick had to abandon, according to people involved in these discussions,” Bloomberg’s Eric Newcomer writes. (Uber spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker told Bloomberg: “That’s not representative of how we feel. No one working at Uber would want another company to experience what we have over the past few weeks.”)

The uneven distribution of backlash may be attributed, in part, to the fact that Uber and Tesla are vastly different companies in different markets. Tesla is a $280 billion electric-car manufacturer. Uber, on the other hand, is a technologically sophisticated logistics company that effectively provides a commodity function to its 40 million active riders every month. It was incredibly easy for young urban customers to dump Uber, even temporarily, if it just meant switching to an alternative ride-hailing start-up (and in coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, there’s no shortage of other companies). Tesla didn’t face the same sort of outrage because it operates in an entirely different market—you can’t select another Tesla competitor with the tap of a button on an app, and you can’t easily un-order a $75,000 electric car.

More important, the incident revealed that Uber, for all its incredible technology and network effects, hasn’t built something irreplaceable. While the company remains, by far, the dominant player in the U.S. ride-hailing space, there was little to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from abandoning the service—likely for its competitors, though Lyft has not released new engagement numbers—at the drop of a hat. When push came to shove, Uber appeared to be just another cab company, with one notable distinction: Uber, unlike most taxi businesses, has never been profitable.