Taking Down Tesla?
When I was in third grade a classmate pushed me to the pavement during recess, spat on me, and called me the N word.
It's not something I think about often, but it came to mind when I learned that California resident Mike Miller, who is white, wrote to his Congressman asking to categorize harassment and violence against Tesla owners as a hate crime. Hate crimes designations target a person’s identity - who you are - not what you own. Being mocked for your car is like being mocked for your sneakers - it’s mean but you can chose not to wear those sneakers. I could not chose not to go to school or to simply exist.
That said, it is a difficult time to own a Tesla.
In the past month or so bystanders have spray painted swastikas on Tesla's. The cares are now nicknamed “swasticars” (a portmanteau of swastika and car). Owners, especially cybertruck owners, say people are keying their cars, booing at them, and even doing nazi salutes. In Massachusetts someone burned a Tesla charging station. In Oregon people shot up two separate Tesla showrooms (targeting one twice). Earlier this week four cybertrucks burned under mysterious circumstances in Seattle.
And the attacks on Teslas aren’t only domestic.
Someone torched dozens of Teslas outside a showroom near Toulouse, France. Someone covered a Tesla showroom in the Hague with graffiti of swastikas and phrases such as “no to nazis” and “Fuck off fascist.” In London bus stations activists put up swasticar ads equating Elon's actions (including his Nazi salute) to the Nazis in the 1930s.
This isn’t the only nod to facism that the White House has made very publicly. Trump used an actual piece of anti-LLGBTQ+ Nazi propaganda in a post on his social media site Truth Social. The White House also claimed credit for detaining, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian green card - not because he committed any crimes - because they disagreed with his speech. To quote from Senator Chris Murphy:
*“In America your political speech is protected whether or not the president likes what you say. But today…if you’re disloyal to Trump or you are organizing against Trump’s political agenda your speech could be criminalized. You could lock yourself in jail. Trump choose to begin by criminalizing a Palestinian immigrant hoping that his place of birth and his immigrant status would just cause people to look the other way. But we cannot.* ”
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy on Mahmoud Khalil.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yasharali.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T22:56:20.556Z
Across the US, The Tesla Takedown movement has staged protests at Tesla showrooms and EV chargers around the country as a way of undermining Elon Musk. Musk is the CEO of Tesla and the head of DOGE (though he denies, but Trump has said as much). Doge is systematically - and illegally - dismantling the US government even as his own companies, most notably SpaceX, stand to benefit from his actions.
The movement is targeting Tesla for at least three reasons. The first to express displeasure with someone who was not elected, who was not sworn in, and is, allegedly, committing crimes. The government seems unwilling to reconcile with this descent to totalitarianism. So ordinary citizens are trying to hurt Musk in his wallet by discouraging other people from purchasing his products.
The protests are also a way of drawing in the public. Many people have tuned out of the news and may not be aware of that they are being stripped of their rights.
Finally, while Elon’s often called, “the richest man alive,” most of his money comes from his ability to borrow against his Tesla stock. An analogy I’ve seen floated is Musk is “house poor.” He can take out the equivalent of a home equity line of credit against the house, but he has little actual cash. And if his house - or in Elon’s case, his stocks - lose too much value it threatens his ability to repay his debts. This is a problem for Elon because he is in debt up to his ears. Some of that debt is held by people you wouldn't want to owe significant sums of money too. For example, when Elon bought Twitter (now X) he did so with support from the Saudi’s.
The Tesla backlash has gotten so bad that some Tesla owners have taken to putting “I bought this before Elon went crazy” stickers on their cars. Others are going further removing the Tesla logo altogether or even swapping it out with the branding from other car companies. I’ve seen photos of Tesla’s with Honda, Audi, and even Rivian logos.
Tesla also makes most of its money not selling cars but selling carbon credits attached to those cars - last year it made $2.76 billion dollars that way. It is now selling so few cars, both in the US and abroad, that it may no longer be able to sell carbon credits (there’s almost always a climate change angle).
The sales and volatility in the market thanks to Trump’s trade wars means Tesla’s stock price - and with-it Musk’s net worth - has also tumbled. The most recent estimate I’ve seen says that Musk’s net worth is $148 billion dollars less than it was in December.
So yesterday Trump held a press conference encouraging people to buy Teslas. An astute photographer snapped a photo of Trump holding a list of Tesla’s pricing as the President turned into the nation’s chief car salesman.
Of course Trump had notes for the taxpayer funded Tesla infomercial at the White House today to make sure he could hit all the important points 📷by Getty Images/Andrew Harnik
— WuTangIsForTheChildren (@wutangforchildren.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T21:51:38.853Z
At the sales pitch, Trump also he said that he would label violence against Tesla showrooms as domestic terrorism. Hate crime. Domestic terrorism. All over property - not people. Tesla is not the only Musk company taking a hit, it is the most consumer facing. Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim killed a contract with SpaceX (costing the company $7 billion) after Musk retweeted a tweet (falsely) alleging Slim was working with the Mexican cartels.
If Trump goes through with this it would ripping yet another page out of the totalitarian’s playbook. It would be enriching his “friends” while labeling any behavior he dislikes as terroristic. Like being disappeared a la Mahmoud Khalil the threats wouldn’t stop with the Tesla protests. It would have a chilling effect on every value that Americans hold dear. At the same time there’s strong research that says now is not the time to capitulate - capitulating to fascism only begets more fascism.
This isn’t the only facist move the White House has made in recent days. Trump used an actual piece of anti-LGBTQ+ Nazi propaganda in a post on his social media site Truth Social. The White House also claimed credit for detaining, Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder, is currently in ICE custody not because he committed any crimes but because Trump disagreed with his speech.
To quote from Senator Chris Murphy, “In America your political speech is protected whether or not the president likes what you say. But today…if you’re disloyal to Trump or you are organizing against Trump’s political agenda your speech could be criminalized. You could lock yourself in jail. Trump choose to begin by criminalizing a Palestinian immigrant hoping that his place of birth and his immigrant status would just cause people to look the other way. But we cannot.” (The whole video is worth a watch)
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy on Mahmoud Khalil.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yasharali.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T22:56:20.556Z
But in calling attacking Teslas terrorism Trump didn’t just affirm his commitment to totalitarianiams, but also to something else. Terrorism is the use of violence to achieve political or ideological goals. By calling it an act of terrorism Trump is admitting first that targeting Tesla is in fact a way of shaping policy and changing minds. He’s also suggested that the protests are working.
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As I said last time, I started this newsletter to keep people up to date with my work reporting on climate change. When I left Bloomberg last month I planned big plans to finally please my book agent (Hi Sarah) with a long delayed book proposal, and do some backburnered longer form journalism projects. I still plan to do that. What I didn’t expect was the toll living through a coup while approaching the 6th year anniversary of covid would have on me. I’m moving more slowly than I thought I would as I navigate sadness, and rage. I promise next email I will have some (hopefully interesting) work to share with you.
That said, I do want to note that Trump’s dismantling of NOAA (and the weather service) is coming as we enter peak disaster season. Prior to the dismantling experts had warned that this was likely to be an especially active tornado season. It also means heading into fire and hurricane season with sub-par forecasting. We’re doing this - and scrubbing all mention of climate change - even as climate change is clearly making hurricane and wildfire seasons worse. It’s also likely shifting tornado season - the data is still out on that one. For more on that, I want to share this very good tiktok from Meteorologist Cyrena Arnold. (If you’re on a cellphone and don’t have tiktok if you set your browser to desktop mode in your settings it will let you view the tiktok without installing the app).
Until Next time.