Elon Musk is getting increasingly upset about the Tesla protests. Following a significant ramp-up in demonstrations against the automaker this weekend, the CEO went on an unhinged rant claiming the protests were full of paid protestors and that his former buddy Reid Hoffman was behind it.
Last weekend, the ‘Tesla Takedown’ movement had its biggest demonstration yet with an attempt to have protests at all Tesla store and service center locations in the US on Saturday, as well as hundreds of other demonstrations at locations around the world.
Several protests, like the one in New York City, attracted hundreds, if not thousands, of people – pictured above.
Those protests started as a grassroots movement on Blusky, an X competitor, in February. They were organized by local activists looking to put pressure on Musk, who they believe is financing the rise of a fascist authoritarian regime in the US by negatively affecting Tesla, which represents a big part of Musk’s wealth.
The growing Tesla protests are clearly having an effect on Musk, who went on a rant on X about it yesterday.
He shared several posts about theories suggesting the protestors are being paid to attend the Tesla protests:
I looked into all the supposed “evidence” presented by Musk’s posts and the ones he shared, including a Fox News article, and none of them provide a shred of evidence about Tesla protestors being paid. They only make references to conservative voices, believing that they are paid protestors.
In a post where Musk claims “they are literally paid”, the only proposed “proof” is that all protestors left at the exact time when the demonstration was supposed to end, which can be explain as simply as most jurisdiction require to apply for permits to have large demostrations and they are allowed for a certain period of times.
Therefore, his “proof” is simply evidence that those Tesla protestors were following the law and exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.
In another post, Musk accused his former ‘PayPal Mafia’ friend Reid Hoffman of funding these protests. Hoffman responded by telling Musk that he should just come to terms with the fact that many people don’t like him:
The biggest irony is that Musk was pushing all those baseless claims of people getting paid to attend Tesla protests while he was himself at a rally he organized yesterday to promote the Republican Candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The rally was really popular, and it was because Musk said he would give $1 million to two people attending the rally—literally financially incentivizing people to attend.
Electrek’s Take
Elon has completely lost it. How can he accuse Tesla protestors of being paid when he is himself basically paying people to attend his rally?
On top of having no proof whatsoever, he makes no sense.
Furthermore, the arguments of the Tesla Takedown movement have become much stronger this weekend, with the third-term fiasco.
Following an interview with NBC this weekend, Trump is now on record saying that he is “not joking” about a third term and that his team is actively looking at ways to make it happen. This is clearly unconstitutional and authoritarian.
Their whole argument is that Musk is financing an authoritarian takeover of the government. It is now hard to argue against that.
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