Anti-Tesla Protests Build Momentum Worldwide

Musk's Embrace of Far-Right Politics Provokes Ferocious Uprising

Popular resentment towards Tesla (TSLA) is bubbling to levels not seen with any brand in modern history, as hundreds of millions of citizens around the globe reject the authoritarian extreme-right politics of CEO Elon Musk.

Sales are collapsing by nearly 50% in major markets. Polls are showing large majorities opposed to Elon Musk and the closely entwined Tesla brand. And celebrities and ordinary owners alike are selling their Teslas in disgust.

But perhaps the most striking manifestation of the people’s turn against Tesla are the protests and demonstrations breaking out all over the world. In the past few weeks anti-Tesla demonstrations have been reported in Jacksonville, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, San Diego, Raleigh, Pittsburgh, Fort Lauderdale and more cities around the Untied States and the globe. Activists with the group Tesla Takedown have planned more protests in more cities in the coming weeks, including the first organized protests in London where adverts like the one below began appearing this week:

Typically held at Tesla dealerships or showrooms, such protests feature signs like “Tesla Funds Fascists” or “Fire Elon” which colourfully express the public’s mood. Many signs feature the now iconic image of Musk performing an apparent fascist salute at an inauguration rally in January. Some call for Musk’s outright deportation from the United States, either to his native South Africa or - more ambitiously - to Mars.

In a few cases anti-Tesla sentiments have degenerated into outright vandalism. This week, Tesla charging stations in Ithaca, NY were defaced with swastikas. (pictured above). Earlier this month, swastikas were drawn on the door of a Tesla showroom in the Netherlands. More disturbingly, a Colorado woman has recently been arrested for spray painting the phrase “Nazi Cars” on the walls of a Tesla dealership and then throwing improvised incendiary devices (Molotov cocktails) at the cars.

The depth of anger towards Tesla seems unprecedented in recent business history, which has been rather light on successful boycotts. In 2012 progressive activists led a boycott of fast food giant Chick-fil-A' after reports emerged that its controlling family had donated millions to anti-gay marriage organizations. Conservatives, for their part, boycotted Disney in 2021 for firing an actress who compared being a conservative in Joe Biden’s America to the treatment of Jews in 1930s Germany.

Shockingly, both companies survived.

The Mortal Storm

But those earlier efforts pale in comparison to what is currently unfolding with Tesla, which feels more like a profound social movement than a simple boycott. Ironically its closest analog may be the anti-Apartheid boycotts in which Westerners shunned 1980s South Africa (home to a young Elon Musk) over its racist policies which segregated and disenfranchised its non-white citizens.

In many parts of the United States and Europe, driving a Tesla on the open road has become the equivalent of walking down the street in a swastika T-Shirt. The complete revocation of Tesla’s social licence has happened astonishingly quickly, and it has been even more comprehensive than for the worst firms in the perennially unpopular tobacco and oil industries. No single corporation has faced this level of demonization since the first joint-stock companies were created in the 16th century.

And that timeline is perhaps not a coincidence. Musk’s attempts to siphon the public treasury in exchange for aiding the head-of-state in a succession struggle represent a sort-of return to the feudal order, where lords loyal to the crown were rewarded with grand estates from which they could extract extortionary rents.

Such feudal rent-granting relationships between the state and the economic elite have largely disappeared from industrial societies, because of the influence of Enlightenment ideas and because agriculture’s share of economic activity (and thus the relative value of easily-granted land) has drastically shrunk. But these relationships still exist today in the petrostates of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, and perhaps most-crucially in Putin’s Russia, from whence Musk and the broader MAGA movement seem to draw their political inspiration.

The South African oligarch’s early moves in government show he clearly intends to use his influence within the administration to grow his business empire by firing and hiring his own regulators and awarding himself billions of dollars in government contracts.

Musk’s attempt to create a Putinist oligarchic fiefdom for himself within the United States will likely fail. The political backlash to his activities is building, even within the Republican Party and the MAGA movement. And - importantly - the single largest contributor to Musk’s net worth is Tesla, which still relies on the good old-fashioned post-Enlightenment consumer free-market to pay its bills.

The Great Tesla Uprising will ultimately upend Musk’s imperial ambitions, cost innocent shareholders hundreds of billions of dollars, and may lead to the bankruptcy or sale of Tesla itself. Yet there is one surefire way to save the company from the existential danger of the looming pitchfork rebellion - remove Musk as both CEO and a major shareholder.

The consumers are at the gates. How much longer until Tesla’s Board of Directors sacrifices Lord Elon to the righteous mob?