“So, we’re officially outside the Tesla plant here in Chattanooga, Tennessee,” the 53-year-old Beals says. “And as you can tell, we took the cul-de-sac right here in Chattanooga. They have to drive by us to get in here. So, all Three Percenters across the United States, be very aware of what’s going on with your Tesla dealerships.”
The Three Percenters are a far-right vanguard extremist movement whose adherents posture as the spiritual heirs of the American revolutionaries ready to use force to oppose so-called government tyranny. Since 2016, Three Percenters have aligned with Donald Trump, while embracing his attacks on the so-called “Deep State.”
Beals has a history of seeking confrontation with left-wing activists at protests, while aligning with neo-Nazis. In addition to claiming membership in the Three Percenter movement, Beals has described himself as a “white nationalist.” Posting in a neo-Nazi channel on the social media platform Telegram, Beals once commented that Jews “started Antifa until they got gassed and sent to the concentration camps haha.”
"It was seemingly inevitable for pardoned Jan 6 defendants to once again answer the call to arms, and the chance to become the Kyle Rittenhouse is seemingly too tempting to pass up," Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told Raw Story. "The right wing fascination with performative vigilantism aside, the most likely outcome is that this conspiracy-pilled extremist injuries himself or others while hunting imaginary Antifa members outside a Tesla dealership."
Beals pleaded guilty in September 2024 to two misdemeanors for his activity at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds.
After leaving the Capitol on Jan. 6, the government alleges that Beals recorded a TikTok video in the building’s eastern courtyard, and posed for photos sitting astride a U.S. Capitol Police motorcycle.
“So, we officially took the White House,” Beals said, confusing the executive building with its legislative counterpart, in the TikTok video.
Federal prosecutors asked the judge to give Beals’ a more severe sentence than the guidelines typically warrant for his offense level, based on what they described as “his pervasive, unrepentant actions post-January 6 in light of his significant criminal history and self-proclaimed role as a member of the Three Percenters.”
The government’s sentencing memorandum warned that Beals’ Three Percenter activity continuing beyond Jan. 6 “while behaving in dangerous and provocative ways creates a pattern that could be repeated in the future.”
Prosecutors cited a June 2023 Raw Story report that quoted from Beals’ discussions with neo-Nazis about potentially confronting left-wing activists during Pride celebrations that summer.
A comment by William Beals in the White Lives Tennessee Telegram chat in May 2023.Telegram screengrab
“Most groups won’t walk across the street to confront antifa,” Beals commented. “I do, and I do my best to get those r----ds going to cross the street on me because it’s entertainment to me to knock a libtard out.”
Judge Jia M. Cobb ultimately turned down the government’s request for eight months of prison time, instead sentencing Beals to three years of probation. Four months later, as one of his first acts as president, Donald Trump issued a pardon to Beals, relieving him of probation. Beals advertises his status by driving a car with a large decal on the back window declaring: “JSIX presidential pardon.”
Text messages uncovered by the government during Beals’ prosecution reveal Beals’ conspiratorial thinking.
Five days after the attack on the Capitol, according to the government, Beals expressed the belief in a text to fellow Three Percenters and that Jacob Chansley, the so-called “QAnon Shaman,” had infiltrated “antifa” and the “Deep State” to obtain then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop.
“The president [Trump] has what he needs to take down the deep state thank you god,” Beals said.
In another message to the same text group on Jan. 11, 2021, Beals reportedly said, “We need to understand that our country works for its patriots and not against its patriots. We are the front line…. We the people will not stand and watch our country be divided based on our race or whatever agenda the deep state and the left incorporate. We are the last free nation. It is our civic duty to keep it that way.”
Addressing his followers on TikTok at the Tesla protest in Chattanooga on March 22, Beals expressed concern about the rights of car buyers.
“Every human being has the right to buy whatever they want to buy,” he said. “So, therefore when any human being, because of their political stance, wants to come at people and wants to destroy our people — you know, Elon Musk has no — they buy from Elon Musk. Therefore, they’re going after individuals, not Elon Musk.”
Reached by phone on Tuesday, Beals declined to comment on his presence at the protest other than to say that he plans to be back at the Tesla dealership again this weekend.
“If you write the story, I will sue you and take everything you have,” he said.
Tensions have run high at some of the protests outside Tesla dealerships, where protesters are targeting billionaire owner Musk’s efforts to slash the federal government through his so-called Department Of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. A man reportedly attempted to drive his SUV into a group of protesters at a Tesla dealership near West Palm Beach, Fla. on the same day as the Chattanooga protest. The driver in Florida was charged with aggravated assault with a weapon.
Raw Story obtained video of two counter-protesters engaging with Tesla demonstrators, including one who can be seen walking along the line, but Beals is not among them.
The owner of the Facebook page for Indivisible Tennessee, which organized the protests in Chattanooga and other cities across the state on March 22, publicly acknowledged that “reports and videos have surfaced showing protesters yelling at drivers and using offensive language.”
In addition to Chattanooga, Indivisible Tennessee led protests in Knoxville, Franklin and Memphis on March. The post did not specify where protesters were yelling at drivers, but warned that those who engage in aggressive behavior at future protests will be asked to leave.
A video of one of the men who confronted the Chattanooga protesters shows him saying, “They’re firebombing Tesla dealerships and destroying property…. It’s terrorism. If you support what they’re doing, you’re supporting terrorism.”
The Indivisible Tennessee Facebook post emphasizes that the group holds a “strict policy against vandalism or violence of any kind.”
Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced charges against three individuals who allegedly attacked Tesla dealerships and a charging station with Molotov cocktails in Oregon, Colorado and South Carolina.
“The days of committing crimes without consequences have ended,” Bondi said.
The following day, Trump posted on Truth Social that he looks “forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they’re doing to Elon Musk and Tesla,” while suggesting they could be deported to El Salvador to serve sentences in prisons that have been criticized for rampant human rights abuses.
The United States does not have a domestic terrorism statute on the books, but the FBI has long defined politically motivated vandalism as a terrorism. In the early 2000s, the FBI boasted of a string of convictions for arson conspiracy by members of the group Earth Liberation Front who targeted new home construction sites and SUV dealerships. On Monday, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the creation of an task force devoted to investigating the attacks against Tesla vehicles.
With his appearance at the protest in Chattanooga over the weekend, Beals positioned himself as a protector of Americans who wish to exercise their choice to buy vehicles that have become unpopular with a segment of the American population opposed to Trump.
But he hasn’t always been on the right side of the law.
In a sentencing memorandum filed in federal court in September, federal prosecutors cited Beals’ “horrendous criminal history,” which includes a five-year prison stint in Oklahoma in the 1990s for stealing auto and aircraft parts; a burglary conviction; and a two-year prison sentence for felony assault.
The government also cited a Chattanooga Police Department record indicating that Beals allegedly threatened someone with a ball-peen hammer during a drag performance in November 2022, although Beals was not charged in that incident.
Despite Beals being a convicted felon, when the FBI raided his home in Georgia in August 2023 to arrest him for Jan. 6 offenses, they found firearms and ammunition.
As of September 2024, prosecutors reported, Beals had yet to be charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to comment on whether Beals will be charged in relation to the firearms.
But in other cases in which Jan. 6 defendants have been charged with separate offenses stemming from the discovery of unlawful firearms, federal prosecutors have agreed to dismiss charges.
Jeremy Brown, a US. Army veteran, was charged with possession of unregistered firearms when federal agents found a sawed-off shotgun and hand grenades in an RV parked outside his home in Florida. The case was charged separately from his prosecution for unlawfully entering restricted buildings or grounds at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In another case, federal agents arrested Daniel Ball for multiple felonies, including assaulting law enforcement and using fire or explosives to commit a felony, on Jan. 6. At the time of his arrest, according to the government, Ball had been convicted of domestic violence battery by strangulation and battery on a law enforcement officer. While executing a search warrant at Ball’s home in Florida to gather evidence to support his Jan. 6 charges, agents discovered a firearm and ammunition in his house.
Ball was indicted two days after Trump took office for unlawful transport of firearms and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
In both Brown and Ball’s cases, Sara Sweeney, the acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, filed notices indicating that “based on consultation with Department of Justice leadership,” the government’s position is that the separate firearms charges “are intended to be covered” by the pardons issued by President Trump.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally in Coachella, California, U.S., October 12, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally in Coachella, California, U.S., October 12, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake