Elon Musk, serial over-promiser and sometimes tech CEO is facing backlash in America as tensions rise from his controversial appointment as an advisor in the White House.
Most of these protests are associated with the Tesla Takedown movement that first emerged in February. It encourages supporters to “sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines” as part of efforts to “stop Musk.” But momentum has ramped up significantly in the past week, leading to bigger turnouts and some arrests.
Protests have escalated into vandalism as charging stations in Boston were set ablaze, and dozens of vehicles were set on fire in a dealership in France.
Even here in Malaysia, a woman was caught on camera throwing a rock at the windshield of a Tesla. The woman is still at large and the motive is unknown.
At the time of writing, there are more than 350 protestors in Manhattan’s West VIllage Tesla Showroom, 300 in Boston, hundreds in Boston, and more in Delray Beach and Pasadena.
Even before the protests started, Tesla’s sales dropped year over year for the first time. Some drivers have also decided to trade in or sell their Teslas to avoid embarrassment, with one owner telling The New York Times she was called a “Nazi.”
Tesla’s stock price has also plummeted more than 50 percent from its record high in December, Forbes reports, while Musk’s net worth sunk from $464 billion in December to $330 billion.
In response to the protests, Musk accused billionaires George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and others of funding the protests through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue.
However, as noted by Forbes, ActBlue “does not fund groups, but instead is a platform through which donors can give money to campaigns or organizations.”
The sales of Tesla in Malaysia has waxed and waned. However the BYD outsells the competition 2 to 1.
