Tesla Cybertrucks set ablaze. Bullets and Molotov cocktails aimed at Tesla showrooms. Attacks on property carrying the logo of Elon Musk’s electric car company are cropping up across the United States and overseas. While no injuries have been reported, Tesla showrooms, vehicle lots, charging stations, and privately owned cars have been targeted. Musk has sharply criticised these “evil attacks” in a social media post.
In Canada, Tesla was removed from an international automobile show over safety concerns, said an Associated Press report via Press Trust of India.
There has been a clear uptick in attacks on Tesla since Donald Trump took office as President of the United States and empowered Elon Musk to oversee a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that is slashing government spending.
“This level of violence is insane and deeply wrong,” Musk wrote on Tuesday on X, sharing a video of burning Teslas in Las Vegas. “Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these evil attacks.”
Experts on domestic extremism say that it is impossible to know yet if the spate of incidents will balloon into a long-term pattern.
In Trump’s first term, his properties in New York City, Washington, and elsewhere became a natural place for protest. In the early days of his second term, Tesla is filling that role.
“Tesla is an easy target,” said Randy Blazak, a sociologist who studies political violence. “They’re rolling down our streets. They have dealerships in our neighbourhoods.”
Musk critics have organised dozens of peaceful demonstrations at Tesla dealerships and factories across North America and Europe. Some Tesla owners, including a US senator who feuded with Musk, have vowed to sell their vehicles.
But the attacks are keeping law enforcement busy.
Prosecutors in Colorado charged a woman last month in connection with a string of attacks on Tesla dealerships, including Molotov cocktails thrown at vehicles and the words “Nazi cars” spray-painted on a building.
Federal agents in South Carolina last week arrested a man they say set fire to Tesla charging stations near Charleston. An agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wrote in an affidavit that authorities found writings critical of the government and DOGE in the man’s bedroom and wallet. “The statement made mention of sending a message based on these beliefs,” the agent wrote.
A number of the most prominent incidents have been reported in left-leaning cities in the Pacific Northwest, like Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, where anti-Trump and anti-Musk sentiment runs high.
An Oregon man is facing charges after allegedly throwing several Molotov cocktails at a Tesla store in Salem, then returning another day and shooting out windows.
In the Portland suburb of Tigard, more than a dozen bullets were fired at a Tesla showroom last week, damaging vehicles and windows, the second time in a week that the store was targeted.
Four Cybertrucks were set on fire in a Tesla lot in Seattle earlier this month. On Friday, witnesses reported a man poured gasoline on an unoccupied Tesla Model S and started a fire on a Seattle street.
In Las Vegas, several Tesla vehicles were set ablaze early on Tuesday outside a Tesla service centre, where the word “resist” was also painted in red across the building’s front doors.
Authorities said that at least one person threw Molotov cocktails — crude bombs filled with gasoline or another flammable liquid — and fired several rounds from a weapon into the vehicles.
“Was this terrorism? Was it something else? It certainly has some of the hallmarks that we might think — the writing on the wall, potential political agenda, an act of violence,” said Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI office, at a news conference. “None of those factors are lost on us.”
Trump gives Tesla a boost
Tesla stock doubled in value in the weeks after Donald Trump’s election win, but it has since shed all those gains.
Trump gave a boost to Tesla when he turned the White House driveway into an electric vehicle showroom. The president promoted the vehicles and said that he would purchase an USD 80,000 Model S, eschewing his fierce past criticism of electric vehicles.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the attacks. Elon Musk briefly addressed the vandalism on Monday, during an appearance on Senator Ted Cruz’s podcast, saying “at least some of it is organised and paid for” by “left-wing organisations in America, funded by left-wing billionaires, essentially”.
The progressive group Indivisible, which published a guide for supporters to organise “Musk Or Us” protests around the country, said in a statement that all of its guidance was publicly available and “it explicitly encourages peaceful protest and condemns any acts of violence or vandalism”.
Some Tesla owners have resorted to cheeky bumper stickers to distance themselves from their vehicle’s new stigma and perhaps deter would-be vandals. They say things like “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy” or “I just wanted an electric car. Sorry guys.”
The White House has thrown its weight behind Musk, the highest-profile member of the Trump Administration and a key donor to committees promoting Trump’s political interests.
President Trump has said that Tesla vandalism amounts to “domestic terror”, and he has threatened retribution, warning that those who target the company are “going to go through hell”.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said that she had opened an investigation “to see how is this being funded, who is behind this”. In a statement on Tuesday, she vowed to “continue investigations that impose severe consequences”, including for “those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes”.
