A group calling itself “Students Against Nazi Extremism” is reportedly issuing threats to Tesla owners ito sell their vehicles or they will be vandalized, according to a local media report.
Lost Coast Outpost reports that residents in Humboldt County in northern California found notes left on their Teslas saying "no Nazis in America." At least one of the notes was tied to a brick, according to local media reports.
The group mailed a supposed manifesto to the news outlet claiming responsibility for the notes. The manifesto also issued threats to Tesla owners in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County north of San Francisco, Hayward in Alameda County in the city’s East Bay, and Seaside in Monterey County.
The outlet did not release the manifesto, but offered a summary of its contents.
"So obviously this is a vendetta against [Elon] Musk, and their goal, they say, is to create a big stigma around owning a Tesla. So they want the value of Tesla vehicles to plummet," explained Ryan Burns, a reporter at Lost Coast Outpost.
Police in Seaside said they were aware of the notes and were taking the implied threats seriously, but had received no reports of vandalism as of Wednesday afternoon.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla, X, and SpaceX, is currently in the process of gutting the federal government under the questionable authority he has been granted by Donald Trump as a "special government employee" running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is not actually a federal department.
The world’s richest man quickly faced sharp criticism after he gave what has been described as a Nazi sieg heil salute during a speech on the day Trump was inaugurated.
Musk has dismissed the criticism of his salute as "dirty tricks" played by the media, and responded to the criticism with a slew of puns incorporating the names of historical Nazi leaders.
Backlash against Musk's wholesale incursions into government systems – some of which have given Musk and his team access to pay systems of the Treasury Department with Americans' Social Security numbers and other sensitive information – has resulted in some ill-will toward those using Musk products.
A woman in the Bay Area recently reported that someone spray painted the word “Nazi” on her Cybertruck. She said she believed the message was intended to be criticism of Musk.
A man in Worchester, Massachusetts who drives a Cybertruck claims he has been threatened for driving the vehicle.
According to CBS News, Dr. Kumait Jaroje said someone put an insulting sticker on his golden Cybertruck in early February. He shared an image of the sticker and his truck online, and claims he then began getting threats over social media.
Protesters against Musk in Manhattan and Maine have also posted up outside of Tesla showrooms and charger stations to express their frustration with the unelected billionaire’s actions against the federal government, MSNBC reports.
Tesla blowback isn't just limited to the US; a group projected an image of Musk giving his controversial salute onto an exterior wall of a Tesla factory in Berlin, along with the word "heil." German authorities have been investigating the incident with the intent to press charges against those responsible.
Musk has been a vocal supporter of the far-right AfD party in Germany, sparking backlash from moderate and liberal Germans who oppose his attempts to influence their national politics.
