In response to the billionaire’s scorched-earth raids on US government agencies, Tesla chargers and showrooms are being targeted
In the early morning hours of Donald Trump’s inauguration day, a person wearing a long black cloak and face mask wheeled a cart down an Oregon sidewalk. He was headed toward a Tesla showroom in Salem, and his cart appeared to be loaded with Molotov cocktails, according to court documents. One by one, he took out the handmade explosives, lit them on fire and lobbed them at the glass-walled dealership.
By the time Salem police arrived, the showroom window was shattered, a fire was burning on the sidewalk out front, a nearby Tesla sedan was ablaze and the alleged vandal had fled. The whole scene was caught by security footage, according to an affidavit from a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The showroom’s general manager estimated $500,000 in damages, with seven vehicles struck and one completely destroyed.
Bottom: A damaged Tesla dealership Photograph: Salem Police Department
The vandalism incident is one of dozens to hit Tesla dealerships, cars and electric vehicle makers charging stations across the country since Trump took office. Many bear explicit messages protesting against Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and a senior adviser to the president. Musk is the head of the unofficial so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) and has made it his prerogative to overhaul the federal government – ordering the firing of tens of thousands of employees, slashing agency budgets and eliminating entire departments. His hardline approach, which takes aim at institutions including the National Weather Service, the Department of Education and the Social Security Administration, has elicited backlash and criticism nationwide.
Thousands have attended peaceful protests at Tesla showrooms in cities and towns across the country. In the 54-odd days since the inauguration, those protests have grown from a handful of people in cities like San Francisco chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Elon Musk has got to go” to massive demonstrations across the US replete with live bands, Musk-as-Hitler costumes and heavy police presence. They have also crossed the Atlantic, with demonstrations occurring in the UK and Germany.
As the protests have multiplied, so has vandalism against Tesla’s brick-and-mortar business and individual vehicles. The Guardian has tracked at least three separate incidents involving Molotov cocktails, the coordinated theft of nearly 50 Tesla tyres and spray-painted swastikas on Tesla facilities from New York to New Mexico. Nearly 20 Tesla showrooms and charging stations have seen deliberate fires set, while dozens of owners have had their cars egged, pooped on and hit with Kraft cheese singles.
Like the protests, the defacement and destruction of Tesla facilities has also gone international, with sedans and Cybertrucks targeted in at least five other countries. In France, authorities in Toulouse reported that a dozen cars were torched at a Tesla showroom earlier this month. Another showroom in the Netherlands was graffitied with slogans such as “fuck off fascist” and others that called Musk a Nazi. One vandal as far away as Tasmania wrote “Do you really want to drive a swasticar” across a dealership window?
Musk and Tesla did not return requests for comment. In response to a police report of Tesla vandalism in Massachusetts, Musk posted on X, “Damaging the property of others, aka vandalism, is not free speech!” Musk also reposted an interview with Valerie Costa, an organizer of the nonviolent Tesla Takedown demonstrations, and accused her of “committing crimes”.
Trump said earlier this week that he would label the violence against Tesla showrooms as domestic terrorism as he stood next to Musk in front of the White House. “I’m going to put a stop to it,” Trump said. “Because they’re harming a great American company.”
A day later, the House Speaker Mike Johnson boosted the proposed designation. “Congress will investigate the sources of these attacks and help the DOJ & FBI ensure those responsible are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Johnson posted on X, the social media platform Musk owns.
Musk thanked Johnson on X, adding both a salute and an American flag emoji.
Hurling molotovs and firing semi-automatics
In Salem, one month after the suspect first hurled Molotov cocktails at the Tesla dealership, he returned. This time he came armed with what police believe to be a semi-automatic rifle.
At around 4 am, surveillance footage shows him firing multiple rounds into the empty Tesla showroom, once again shattering windows and hitting a car parked inside the building. Investigators collected bullet fragments, logged surveillance video and sent the leftover Molotov cocktails to an FBI lab in Alabama for fingerprint dusting. No one was injured.
ATF agents believe both incidents are linked to Salem resident Adam Lansky, who has been apprehended and charged. Lansky’s lawyer did not return a request for comment.
In the small Colorado town of Loveland, police rushed to a Tesla showroom in response to a report of a fire burning by a Cybertruck on 29 January. Underneath the vehicle, they found a spent Molotov cocktail.
As with the Salem incident, the suspect in the Loveland case returned to the scene, according to court documents. Four days later, the word “Nazi” was spray painted on the dealership’s sign. Over the following weeks, the showroom was targeted three more times with Molotov cocktails and graffiti. Lucy-Grace Nelson, a resident from a nearby town, was charged for the series of incidents. Her lawyer declined to comment on the case.
Police in North Charleston, South Carolina, are also investigating a vandal who threw a Molotov cocktail at a Tesla charging station earlier this week, setting both it and himself on fire and forcing officials to cut the station’s power. The words “Long live the Ukraine” were spray painted in red on the pavement next to the charging stations, according to the Associated Press. The incident came after Trump rolled back US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, a move that Musk embraced.
Deliberate fires have also been set at Tesla showrooms and charging stations throughout the US without Molotovs. Earlier this month, in Littleton, Massachusetts, seven Tesla charging stations were set ablaze in one night, according to CBS. Police found the first station thick with dark smoke and flames. Fires were also set at a Tesla facility in rural New Mexico and in an electric vehicle holding lot in Seattle, Washington, this week.
The Seattle fire department told the Guardian it found four Cybertrucks engulfed in flames when it arrived on the scene at around 11 pm last Sunday. Local news station Komo News flew a drone over the wreckage and filmed one Cybertruck reduced to “little more than a charred hunk of metal”. Another was so badly burned that the windows melted, according to Komo. The Seattle police declined to comment because the investigation is ongoing.
Source: The Guardian
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