Canadians, reacting to U.S. President Donald Trump’s taunts about Canada becoming the 51st state, are particularly angry with Elon Musk. Trump and Musk speak to reporters as they sit in a Tesla vehicle on the South Lawn of the White House on March 11.The Associated Press
Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Like so many businesspeople before him, Tesla TSLA-Q CEO Elon Musk is learning that politics is a fickle mistress.
In Mr. Musk’s case, it has also become a violent one. In the past few weeks, his company’s vehicles and dealerships have been the targets of vandalism, arson, gunfire and protests, including the torching of four Tesla Cybertrucks in Seattle last weekend.
Earlier this month, seven Tesla charging stations near Boston were set ablaze and shots were fired at a Tesla dealership in Oregon. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside a showroom in Lower Manhattan last Saturday, chanting, “Nobody voted for Elon Musk” and “Oligarchs out, democracy in.” Six of them were arrested.
In Colorado, federal prosecutors charged a woman with malicious destruction of property for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at cars and spray-painting “Nazi” at a Tesla dealership north of Denver. Teslas parked on a Chicago street were also vandalized.
Tesla owners seeking to sell their cars in protest – or because they are tired of being harassed – are finding the marketplace is also weighing in on Mr. Musk’s role in the Trump administration: Prices for used Teslas have sagged since he became the de facto head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.
DOGE and Elon Musk are upending the underlying architecture of government itself
Canadians, reacting to U.S. President Donald Trump’s taunts about Canada becoming the 51st state, are particularly angry with Mr. Musk. A recent poll by the Toronto Star newspaper found that 71 per cent of Canadians supported a Tesla ban, and thousands have signed a petition demanding that Mr. Musk’s Canadian citizenship be revoked.
To the extent that Mr. Musk cares, he must see some irony in the turn of events. Once the brash pioneer who brought electric vehicles into the mainstream – and in the process made Tesla a shining, high-profile symbol of the progressive green agenda’s success – he and his products are now being demonized for his political leanings the other way.
To be fair, there may be no evidence yet that those protesting, burning, shooting, defacing and allegedly seeking to blow up Teslas are left of centre. But let’s be honest – it is not a big stretch to deduce that they probably don’t share the political views of Mr. Musk and his boss.
To that point, it seems no coincidence that the protests and attacks in the U.S. have all occurred in the bluest cities in the bluest states – New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon and Washington state.
And while his detractors say that because Mr. Musk is neither an elected official nor a government employee he does not have the authority to take on the mandate of rooting out widespread waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, what responsible taxpayer doesn’t think that’s a good idea?
Disagree with Mr. Musk’s tactics, fine, but the worthiness of the quest – and the potential benefits for all taxpayers – should be apparent and applauded across political lines.
But in the current political climate, wracked by emotion and partisan hysteria, even seemingly reasonable initiatives such as the DOGE agenda become politicized – and its main advocate vilified.
In a show of support for his DOGE leader, Mr. Trump this week made a ceremonial “purchase” of a new Tesla at the White House.
The fact that the objections to Mr. Musk and the way he is carrying out his new role have turned violent and are directed toward objects that have nothing to do with the politics themselves is beyond regrettable, even juvenile.
This isn’t the playground sandbox. Those who are attacking Teslas are like children who throw things and break stuff when they get angry. And those seeking to dump their Teslas in protest or boycott the products, well, it seems that for them virtue signalling is a one-way street.
The bottom line is this: Americans voted to give Mr. Trump a mandate. Like him and his tactics or not, Mr. Musk is part of that mandate.
Protesters should put away their Molotov cocktails, firearms and cans of spray paint and act like constructive members of a democracy. Midterm elections are the appropriate place for them to register their disapproval of the jobs Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk are doing and, if they can, shift the balance of power in Congress.
Vandals who believe they are making a positive statement are actually hurting their cause. Acts of violence rarely make a strong case for fitness to lead.