Boycotting President Elon

Protests have been gathering around Tesla dealerships:

Protesters gathered outside Tesla dealerships across the US on Saturday in response to Elon Musk’s efforts to shred government spending under the president, Donald Trump.

Groups of demonstrators up to 100-strong gathered outside the electric carmaker’s showrooms in cities including New York, Seattle, Kansas City and across California. Organisers said the protests took place in dozens of locations.

While the protests were scattered, they highlighted the risks to the car company of Musk’s close association with Trump’s radical rightwing agenda. Many of the protesters carried placards likening the Trump administration to Nazis – a characterisation that Musk has previously emphatically denied.

Musk is leading the US president’s “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, its name deriving from an internet dog meme. Doge’s actions, rapidly dismantling government agencies and firing federal workers en masse across the US, have been criticised as illegal by some constitutional experts.

Elon has also been an increasing focus of protests of other venues, which makes sense — a white nationalist plutocrat being given unaccountable power helps cut through the “populist” imagine Trump has been able to cultivate in the political press.

Boycotts tend to be an ineffective strategy, but I think this lays out a good case for why Tesla is an exception. To boil it down, 1)its stock is massively overvalued, 2)it’s a major leg of Musk’s wealth, 3)sales are already declining (especially in Europe), and 4)every day Musk is doing more to alienate the only potential customers for his product. Making buying or owning a Tesla as toxic as painting a Swastika on your car is both something that can be done and should be done.