Here's how we supercharge attempts to hold Elon Musk to account
I’ve been struggling to imagine Elon Musk might do if he gets his trillion-dollar payday. He could spend a million dollars a day for 3,000 years. Or, more realistically, $100 million a day for 30 years. He could spend the $290 million he invested in Donald Trump’s re-election and do it 3,400 times, wherever and whenever he pleases. Or buy more media properties, spending up to 20 times the $44 billion it took to buy Twitter and make it into a misinformation swamp, key to Trump’s success.
But the money the Tesla board just handed Musk isn’t guaranteed. He has to meet goals like delivering 20 million Tesla vehicles and dramatically increasing Tesla’s stock price.
Ordinary citizens can prevent that, but we need to take our efforts to another level.
The global Tesla Takedown campaign has spearheaded the challenges to Musk with protests at showrooms and charging stations. So signs, chants, music, inflatable animals, and a clear message that driving a Tesla means supporting all that Trump and Musk have done. They brought people out who’d never participated before and, as people have followed their lead globally, helped:
- Drop European Tesla sales nearly 40 percent in a year.
- Drop US sales 19 percent from two years ago, despite lowering prices and margins.
- Despite EV sales increasing overall, drive Tesla’s US share to an eight-year low,.
- Led Cybertrucks to sell just 16,000 in the US through September, despite Musk saying they’d sell 250,000 and having his other companies buy them.
- Drop Tesla’s stock price to 71 percent from its January high, before rebounding in part due to third quarter sales, when people grabbed EV’s of all kinds to buy them before Trump’s tax bill ended the $7,500 tax credits.
The campaign did lose some momentum after DOGE, and as Musk left the White House and feuded with Trump. Musk became less visible and maybe seemed less toxic.
But he just joined fellow tech lords at a lavish White House dinner for Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman, bone saws optional. And he’s continued promoting ultra-right wing parties globally, like the German Alternative für Deutschland, while his Grokipedia praises White Supremacists and French Grok promotes Holocaust denial. Add to that an estimated 400,000 children and 200,000 adults who’ve died because of DOGE’s USAID cuts.
Whether Musk gains or loses power remains hugely consequential.
Tesla showroom protests remain a powerful way for citizens everywhere to push back. But they need to put more energy into engaging America’s 2 million existing Tesla drivers as allies, by asking them to display anti-Musk stickers, magnets, or vinyl decals. Without them, Teslas on the street function as de facto advertisements. People see the cars. It’s the EV brand people have heard of most and their owners seem content. Their presence seems uncontroversial, and they do have a great charging network, so why not buy one if you’re considering an EV.
But when Teslas display anti-Elon statements, this changes the message.
“I BOUGHT THIS BEFORE ELON WENT CRAZY.”
“HERE FOR THE CLIMATE, NOT ELON.”
“ANTI-ELON TESLA CLUB.”
“FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS BUY NEW TESLAS.”
Such stickers proclaim clearly that drivers bought the cars to help address climate change, not to promote would-be dictators. When most bought their cars, Musk really was an environmental hero, particularly when Tesla also bought the leading rooftop solar installer, Solar City.
The bumper stickers, magnets and decals make clear that the drivers won’t buy a Tesla again, and neither should others. They become rolling advertisements against purchasing the car.
Tesla Takedown has sometimes linked to particularly clever stickers. But their prime push for existing Tesla owners is to pressure them to sell their cars to undercut new sales.
That’s fine when it happens. But especially with Trump killing EV credits, switching to a new equivalent EV, like replacing any car, is costly. Like $5,000-10,000 costly, despite all the great new EVs on the market. Most Tesla owners won’t switch just to make the political point, and that cuts them off as potential participants in the campaign. The bumper sticker approach invites them in.
If the anti-Tesla campaign and its volunteers want to enlist more existing Tesla owners, they could:
- Highlight links to inexpensive stickers, magnets, and decals that anti-Tesla activists could send to or give to friends with Teslas. They can even ask vendors to add Tesla Takedown QR codes.
- Post template letters and emails that people can send friends and neighbors who own Teslas. Or, where legal, put them under Tesla windshields.
- Publicize alternatives. We bought a Chevy Bolt for $20,000 after the $7,500 tax credits that Musk has now helped kill, and it’s been great.
- Press companies and municipalities not cancel Tesla fleet orders, boycott Starlink, support alternatives to Tesla high speed charging stations, and to have their pension funds divest from the company. The latter might also ell pay off financially — even Peter Thiel just sold three-quarters of his holdings.
The campaign is pushing on those more institutional demands, but the more they existing Tesla owners they can bring in, the more impact they’ll have. If we want to limit Elon’s destructive power, the Tesla owners can play a key role
- Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of Soul of a Citizen and The Impossible Will Take a Little While, with nearly 300,000 copies in print between them