Elon Musk’s political positions and his role as almost vice president of Donald Trump clearly tarnish the image of Tesla. The protest has grown in recent weeks in the United States as in Europe, including the new acts of vandalism aimed at vehicles or stores of the brand specialized in 100% electric cars.
Demonstrations against Tesla and Elon Musk
On both sides of the Atlantic, we are witnessing a certain increase in tensions: a movement of a certain magnitude has begun in the United States under the name of “Tesla Takedown” (which can be translated as “in Basla”), presented as a pacifist, with a call to demonstrate in front of the brand’s stores.
“Find a demonstration against Tesla near Chez-Toi, don’t you see it?”
The protesters gathered in front of Tesla concessions in several American cities. You can see an example in Boston below, on Sunday, March 9, with a crowd that sang slogans such as “Elon Musk has been going” (“Elon Musk Must Go”) and the panels that asked “not to buy fascist billionaire cars.”
The same scene in other cities like New York, where the police had arrested nine protesters.
In Germany, the controversial support of Elon Musk for the AFD party of AFD, after the episode of Nazi salvation, also resulted in its part of reactions.
At the end of January, the activists had projected an image of Elon Musk Army Tense at the Tesla factory in Berlin.
The head of the American brand, but also of the social network X (former Twitter) also had the right to his cartoon about a tank during the parade celebrating on Monday of Las Rosas (Rosenmontag) in Düsseldorf, on March 3.
Tesla buried
In France, The vehicles had been burned at a Tuela concessionaire near Toulouse. An act claimed by an anarchist group of the region that is said against “techno-fascist” and, in response to the call, welcomes spring, Crame to Tesla “from several extreme left-wing organizations in Europe.
Four cars experienced the same destination in Berlin on the night of Thursday, March 13 to Friday, March 14, the Local Police said, explaining not to exclude a “political reason.”
In fact, the owners have reported degradations, from the simple drawing to the scoreboard to these fires in recent months.
The Tweet below, as well as the “Tesla Doedown” movement is not a “pacifist demonstration”, with several examples: a set of burned supercharges near Boston, Tesla concessions directed in Colorado and Oregon. The last photo (up to the right) is that of the Tesla store near Toulouse and, therefore, is not directly linked to this movement in the United States.
Counter-fog of the White House
Elon Musk himself shared from his account X of an established cybertruck on fire in Seattle, with the comment “This is crazy” (“is crazy”).
In this context, the White House became an ephemeral concession of Tesla on Tuesday, March 11. A way for Donald Trump to show his solidarity with one of his main followers.
Donald Trump described the authors of vandalism aimed at Tesla as “interior terrorists”, who addressed them:
“We will catch you and live in hell,” the US president threatened.
“It is terrible that so much violence against Tesla employees, the supporters of Tesla, the owners of Tesla, the Tesla stores, are perpetrated. These are innocent people who have not done anything wrong,” said Elon Musk during this event, where he is committed to double the production of Tesla in the United States during the next two years.
If many have criticized this mixture of the genres of a president transformed into a car seller (and in the appearance of a brand that belongs to one of its main advisors), we can simply remember that political leaders, also in Europe, also support, more or less directly, different manufacturers through gender communications.
A taste of revenge also in a certain way for Elon Musk, which had not been invited to the White House in 2021 for a promotion event for electric cars, unlike GM, Ford and Stellantis.
Shame (or pride) to roll in Tesla
Like the “Flygskam”, the shame of taking the plane, has also developed a similar feeling on driving in Tesla for some time.
First in the United States, then in Europe, we see some owners adding a sticker “I bought this car before Elon Musk got angry” in his tesla. One way to show your opposition to certain ideas, but also to potentially protect themselves from deterioration with the implicit message: “I drive in Tesla, but I don’t believe how Elon Musk.”
Even more original, in the United States, some owners have changed the logo of their Tesla for that of other brands such as Mazda or Honda. The opportunity to cross the “Audi A5 Model 3” or a “Toyota Cybertruck”, as can be seen in the compilation below.
They distorted ads against the “swasticle”
Ironically, for Tesla, which is well known that it does not resort to “traditional” advertising (posters or pub places), for example), we have also seen false ads in recent times assuming the main criticisms against Elon Musk.
A group of British activists “All the umbrellas Elon” (“Everyone hates Elon”) is at the origin of several initiatives playing in the codes of the American brand: 0 to 100 km/has often presented by Tesla thus transforms “0 to 1939 in 3 seconds”, with an Elon Musk Musk in a tesla when making a Nazi greeting.
Other posters of the same style have been installed in shelters or in the London Metro, always aimed at Tesla.
Other posters also invite him to eliminate his X account, one with the subtext: “If a bar lets the Nazis enter, it is a Nazi bar”, referring to a very limited moderation on the social network since its acquisition of Elon Musk.
Finally, we can cite this poster, parody of the wise “Fast & Furious”, also hung in London of several witnesses.
But Tesla still keeps fans. A group of owners of Silicon Valley has just shared several videos of Bright Show “in support of Tesla and Elon Musk”.
Boycott calls
These anti-tesla also found a nickname for brand cars, renamed “swasticle”: the contraction of “Swatiska” (“Svatiska” in French), the swastika symbol used by the Nazi diet and “car” (“car”).
Small logos are offered, for example, for sale, with the slogan “do not buy a swastivar” with a tense arm of musk or with an Adolf Hitler mustache.
If Tesla’s sales have fallen abruptly since the beginning of the year in Europe, it is difficult at the moment to attribute this fall to the brand’s boycott calls.
Tesla has just launched the new version of its very popular Y SUV, the best car sold in the world all the engines combined in 2023 and 2024, and therefore with a logical sales that corresponds (for the moment) to this launch calendar.
We will have to wait for the numbers of March in Europe for the first return to the success found, or not, with this new model Y. And even rather the month of June, when Tesla will launch the deliveries of the most affordable versions of this model.
Source: BFM TV
