On Monday, Elon Musk‘s X feed offered the usual mix of paranoid politics, attacks on Democrats and government agencies, and content from accounts affiliated with President Donald Trump (who still prefers his own web platform, Truth Social). But mixed in were a number of posts about Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer that still counts him as CEO despite his seemingly full-time commitment to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a task force firing thousands of government workers as it torches the administrative state.
Musk posted, for example, a TikTok of a man showing off the design and features of a Tesla Model Y. Before that, he amplified pro-Tesla comments 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 company will allegedly be making by 2026. He also circulated a video taken by a customer in their new Cybertruck, writing, “Heartfelt thanks to everyone supporting @Tesla, despite many attacks against our stores and offices.” The comment referred to a scattered handful of fires at Tesla dealerships in recent days — some of them alleged or suspected arsons — as well as showrooms vandalized or damaged by gunfire.
Musk’s increased advertising might be thanks to Tesla’s wobbly performance on Wall Street. The stock finally dropped into free-fall on Monday, plunging more than 15 percent to mark one of the company’s worst trading days since it went public in 2010. The tumble erased the last vestiges of the rally Tesla enjoyed after Trump’s election victory in November, when investors clearly felt that a company run by the president-elect’s largest Super PAC donor was a smart bet. It has lost more 50 percent of its value — the equivalent of some $800 billion — since cresting in mid-December.
A number of factors contributed to this reversal, including declines across the market and hints of a possible recession. Yet the Tesla brand has also become uniquely toxic since Musk swept into Washington, gave what was widely recognized as a Nazi salute at an inauguration event, and moved to eliminate entire federal offices at a stroke, all while continuing to stoke hate with far-right misinformation on X. Last month, the mounting backlash cohered into a formal protest campaign, Tesla Takedown, that is organizing regular demonstrations at Tesla centers around the world while encouraging a boycott and, of course, calling for the automaker’s investors to sell their shares.
Unsurprisingly, Musk has disparaged Tesla Takedown as something astroturfed by wealthy liberals (and conflated the peaceful movement with attacks in which suspected arsonists threw Molotov cocktails at dealerships). On Saturday, he claimed without evidence on X that an “investigation” of some kind had revealed that wealthy philanthropists including George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix were funding the groups behind Tesla protests through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue. Aside from misrepresenting how ActBlue works — it doesn’t fund anything but is rather a system through which donors can send money to Democratic political candidates and liberal organizations — Musk also pointed the finger at two more supposed financiers of Tesla Takedown, Herbert Sandler and Patricia Bauman, who died in 2019 and 2024, respectively.
Hoffman pushed back against the unfounded accusation on Monday on X. “Just one more of Elon’s false claims about me: I never funded anyone for Tesla protests,” wrote the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, who was an executive with Musk at PayPal in the early 2000s. “I don’t condone violence. But it’s clear Americans are angry at him — it’s easier to explain away their anger, than to accept that actions have consequences.” Musk replied, “Describe your favorite island vacation,” baselessly implying that Hoffman had visited the Caribbean private island of the late sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. While Hoffman was acquainted with Epstein, as many rich and powerful individuals were, there is nothing to suggest he was a client of Epstein’s trafficking ring. He revealed in an interview last year that he had to hire security staff because of Musk’s repeated insinuations to the contrary. (Hunt-Hendrix did not return a request for comment on Musk’s ActBlue accusation, while Soros, a frequent target for Musk and far-right instigators, did not comment publicly on it.)
Elsewhere, Musk amplified a post from a Tesla-promoting account outlining the historical links that other automakers, including Mercedes and Volkswagen, have to the Nazi regime. Responding to a post about how actress Alyssa Milano had traded in her Tesla for an electric vehicle from VW, Musk wrote, “Alyssa Milano loves Hitler.” He also replied to a self-identified nationalist user’s groundless claim that “groups” attacking Tesla property are “inspired by” Luigi Mangione, the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. “Wow,” he wrote.
As Tesla shares took a pounding on Monday, X also faced with a series of outages that Musk chalked up to a “massive cyberattack,” though he did not go into further detail. When the site was functioning, Musk made sure to spread a wild conspiracy theory about a fire at a Tesla lot in Seattle late Sunday night that damaged several Cybertrucks. “TERROR: Multiple Democrat [non-governmental organizations] have coordinated attacks on Tesla dealerships, staff, and vehicles,” claimed the anonymous author of a right-wing account, without evidence. “Last night a number of Cybertrucks were torched in Seattle. Democrats are becoming increasingly more desperate and violent.” In fact, the fire is currently under investigation, and the names and political affiliations of any suspected arsonists have not been made public at this time. Nevertheless, Musk shared the blatantly false narrative that Democratic NGOs were to blame, adding: “This is crazy.”
Where it came to positive content about Tesla, it appears that no X account is too obscure for Musk to boost. “All the protests and stories of vandalism to @Tesla service centers and harassment of Tesla owners is insane!” wrote a blue-check user with fewer than 5,000 followers on Sunday. “Let’s all stand together and push back against the aggression!” An accompanying image showed the Tesla logo and the slogan “Stand With Tesla.” Musk reposted it to his massive audience, but the sentiment didn’t prevent him from losing $23 billion the following day.
