Political tensions around electric vehicle brand Tesla are intensifying as protests spread from Europe to the US on 1-2 March 2025. Nine people were arrested at one event held at the automaker’s New York showrooms; blocking traffic, chanting, and waving signs emblazoned with messages such as “No Dictators in the USA” and “Burn a Tesla: Save Democracy”.
Other demonstrations were held in cities including Boston, St Louis, Jacksonville, Dayton, Charlotte, Tucson and Palo Alto. “We are taking action at Tesla, Musk’s flagship company,” said the organisers in a statement on actionnetwork.org. The organisers are encouraging people nationwide to sell their Tesla vehicles, dump the stock, and “join the picket lines.”
One of the key focuses of US-side protests is to force Chief Executive Elon Musk into stop mass layoffs of federal workers by forcing him to either leave government or be forced out of Tesla. Musk has emerged as a key ally of President Trump and currently spearheads the non-government advisory Department of Government Efficiency, which has already successfully pressured over 100,000 federal workers to agree to resign since 20 January.
Over in Europe, protests have taken aim at Musk’s controversial politics, including flashing what was widely perceived as a nazi salute during Trump’s inauguration, and making surprise appearances at rallies for the Alles fur Deutschland political party. Tesla sales have subsequently taken a nosedive in Europe, with the worst-affected countries including Germany (-59% year-over-year), France (-63%) and Spain (-74%).
Musk also took the opportunity during a 28 February appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast to fire back at critics and attempt to clarify his political views. “What is actually bad about Nazis? It wasn’t their fashion or their mannerisms, it was the war and genocide,” he said. At the same time, he emphasised that he is “not a nazi” and that the backlash he has faced thus far has been “pretty stressful.”
“Now I can never point at things diagonally,” he continued. “What’s relevant about nazis is like, are you invading Poland? And if you’re not invading Poland, maybe you’re not […] You have to be committing genocide and starting wars.”
