Maybe someone can explain to me why firebombing a Tesla dealership or a Tesla car makes sense.
Over the past week Tesla vehicles have been front and center in the resistance directed at President Trump and his DOGE leader. Elon Musk. Tesla cars have been firebombed. Keyed and the subject of Sharpie messages like NAZI written all over them.
I say if you want to protest Trump and Musk have at. They are attempting to put an end to the bureaucratic stranglehold they claim exists on our federal government. In so doing programs are being slashed and employees being fired.
However, I inquire about the relevance of this matter to the acts of violence directed towards Tesla. Tesla is a publicly traded automobile company that is owned by shareholders. Musk owns approximately 18 percent of those shares. The balance are owned by the big funds, Blackrock, Vanguard, etc. that invest for ordinary people like you and I.
Thus if you plan on bankrupting Tesla, like some lawmakers have pronounced, you aren’t hurting Musk, in fact you are hurting small investors as well as the 100,000 plus employees that depend on their income from Tesla.
You won’t hurt Musk because he owns several companies- Space X, Twitter, Neuralink and the Boring Company, just to name a few. We all know Space X has taken over space, launching rockets every other day and planning a Mars landing very soon. Neuralink aims at restoring autonomy to people with paralysis and potentially treating neurological disorders.
If Tesla is bankrupted, Musk will simply move on to another project. He will still be the richest man in the world. But the 100,000 employees will have nothing.
But back to Tesla. Those people that work for Tesla or are shareholders in the company have absolutely nothing to do with Trump or DOGE. Many of them agree with you politically. So again, why try to destroy them?
But wait, maybe the opposite is happening. I’m reading reports that more Tesla vehicles are being ordered than ever before. Once the darling of climate activists (Teslas are electric and don’t pollute the air) are now being purchased by conservatives who swore they would never ditch their gas guzzlers.
My ownership of two Teslas was well-documented in columns a few years back. They are terrific cars for short distances, but my trips to Florida and back to Michigan were a nightmare because you have to stop every 180 miles to charge. I didn’t buy them because I was promoting a “green agenda.” I bought mine because they were relatively new at the time and I liked the novelty aspect. Now you see them as much as a Chevrolet on the road.
But I digress. As I keep stating don’t blame a sheet of metal for what is happening in government. Rather, direct your blame to those who are implementing the policies you don’t like. Peaceful protests are an American right, and I strongly encourage them, but firebombing and destroying property is bad behavior that might lead to a lengthy jail sentence.
Note who burns and destroys property when things don’t go their way.