Elon Musk departs the U.S. Capitol Constructing on March 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. – Credit score: Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs
On Monday, Elon Musk‘s X feed supplied the same old mixture of paranoid politics, assaults on Democrats and authorities businesses, and content material from accounts affiliated with President Donald Trump (who nonetheless prefers his personal internet platform, Truth Social). However combined in had been quite a few posts about Tesla, the electrical automobile producer that also counts him as CEO regardless of his seemingly full-time dedication to the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), a process drive firing hundreds of presidency employees because it torches the executive state.
Musk posted, for instance, a TikTok of a person displaying off the design and options of a Tesla Mannequin Y. Earlier than that, he amplified pro-Tesla feedback from anti-LGBTQ activist Robby Starbuck and MAGA conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. Over the weekend, he shared clip from a Tesla fan account of the prototype for the Cybercab, a two-seater robotaxi the corporate will allegedly be making by 2026. He additionally circulated a video taken by a buyer of their new Cybertruck, writing, “Heartfelt because of everybody supporting @Tesla, regardless of many assaults towards our shops and places of work.” The remark referred to a scattered handful of fires at Tesla dealerships in latest days — a few of them alleged or suspected arsons — in addition to showrooms vandalized or broken by gunfire.
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Musk’s elevated promoting is likely to be because of Tesla’s wobbly efficiency on Wall Avenue. The inventory lastly dropped into free-fall on Monday, plunging greater than 15 % to mark one of many firm’s worst buying and selling days because it went public in 2010. The tumble erased the final vestiges of the rally Tesla loved after Trump’s election victory in November, when buyers clearly felt that an organization run by the president-elect’s largest Tremendous PAC donor was a wise wager. It has misplaced greater than 50 % of its worth — the equal of some $800 billion — since cresting in mid-December.
A lot of components contributed to this reversal, together with declines throughout the market and hints of a attainable recession. But the Tesla model has additionally turn out to be uniquely poisonous since Musk swept into Washington, gave what was widely known as a Nazi salute at an inauguration occasion, and moved to remove total federal places of work at a stroke, all whereas persevering with to spew far-right misinformation on X. Final month, the mounting backlash cohered into a proper protest marketing campaign, Tesla Takedown, that’s organizing common demonstrations at Tesla facilities around the globe whereas encouraging a boycott and, in fact, calling for the automaker’s buyers to promote their shares.
Unsurprisingly, Musk has disparaged Tesla Takedown as one thing astroturfed by rich liberals (and conflated the peaceable motion with assaults wherein suspected arsonists threw Molotov cocktails at dealerships). On Saturday, he claimed without evidence on X that an “investigation” of some form had revealed that rich philanthropists together with George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix had been funding the teams behind Tesla protests by means of the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue. Apart from misrepresenting how ActBlue works — it doesn’t fund something however is moderately a system by means of which donors can ship cash to Democratic political candidates and liberal organizations — Musk additionally pointed the finger at two extra supposed financiers of Tesla Takedown, Herbert Sandler and Patricia Bauman, who died in 2019 and 2024, respectively.
Hoffman pushed again towards the unfounded accusation on Monday on X. “Only one extra of Elon’s false claims about me: I by no means funded anybody for Tesla protests,” wrote the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, who was an govt with Musk at PayPal within the early 2000s. “I don’t condone violence. However it’s clear People are offended at him — it’s simpler to elucidate away their anger, than to simply accept that actions have penalties.” Musk replied, “Describe your favourite island trip,” baselessly implying that Hoffman had visited the Caribbean non-public island of the late intercourse trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Whereas Hoffman was acquainted with Epstein, as many wealthy and highly effective people had been, there may be nothing to counsel he was a shopper of Epstein’s trafficking ring. He revealed in an interview final yr that he needed to hire security staff due to Musk’s repeated insinuations on the contrary. (Hunt-Hendrix didn’t return a request for touch upon Musk’s ActBlue accusation, whereas Soros, a frequent goal for Musk and far-right instigators, didn’t remark publicly on it.)
Elsewhere, Musk amplified a post from a Tesla-promoting account outlining the historic hyperlinks that different automakers, together with Mercedes and Volkswagen, should the Nazi regime. Responding to a publish about how actress Alyssa Milano had traded in her Tesla for an electrical automobile from VW, Musk wrote, “Alyssa Milano loves Hitler.” He additionally replied to a self-identified nationalist consumer’s groundless declare that “teams” attacking Tesla property are “impressed by” Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. “Wow,” he wrote.
As Tesla shares took a pounding on Monday, X additionally confronted with a sequence of outages that Musk chalked as much as a “large cyberattack,” although he didn’t go into additional element. When the positioning was functioning, Musk made certain to unfold a wild conspiracy principle a few fireplace at a Tesla lot in Seattle late Sunday night time that broken a number of Cybertrucks. “TERROR: A number of Democrat [non-governmental organizations] have coordinated assaults on Tesla dealerships, workers, and automobiles,” claimed the nameless writer of a right-wing account, with out proof. “Final night time quite a few Cybertrucks had been torched in Seattle. Democrats have gotten more and more extra determined and violent.” Actually, the fireplace is currently under investigation, and the names and political affiliations of any suspected arsonists haven’t been made public right now. However, Musk shared the blatantly false narrative that Democratic NGOs had been in charge, adding: “That is loopy.”
The place it got here to constructive content material about Tesla, it seems that no X account is just too obscure for Musk to spice up. “All of the protests and tales of vandalism to @Tesla service facilities and harassment of Tesla house owners is insane!” wrote a blue-check consumer with fewer than 5,000 followers on Sunday. “Let’s all stand collectively and push again towards the aggression!” An accompanying picture confirmed the Tesla emblem and the slogan “Stand With Tesla.” Musk reposted it to his large viewers, however the sentiment didn’t forestall him from shedding $23 billion the next day.
