‘I felt nothing but disgust’: Tesla owners vent their anger at Elon Musk

The tycoon’s links with Donald Trump and Germany’s far-right AfD have slammed the brakes on sales and put the car’s owners in a spin. When Mike Schwede first sat in a Tesla Roadster 15 years ago, he felt like it was a glimpse into the future. By 2016, he was the proud owner of a Tesla, revelling in the thumbs up he would get from other drivers as he whizzed along Europe’s highways in the electric vehicle.

But of late the sheen of owning a Tesla has begun to wear off. For years the brand has been synonymous with Elon Musk and his stance against the climate crisis. Recently, Schwede watched aghast as the Tesla CEO poured hundreds of millions into backing Donald Trump as he made promises to ramp up domestic oil and gas production.

“He was getting more and more weird,” said Schwede, an entrepreneur and digital strategist based in Switzerland. The final straw came when Musk made back-to-back fascist-style salutes during Trump’s inauguration in January. “I felt nothing but utter disgust,” said Schwede. “And I no longer enjoyed sitting in my Tesla.”.

On Tuesday, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association showed sales of new Tesla cars almost halved in Europe last month. The figures left analysts scrambling to assess how big a factor customers turning their backs on the brand because of Musk’s foray into far-right politics may be.

The Texas-based carmaker sold 9,945 vehicles in Europe in January, down 45% from last year’s 18,161, the association said. Now, there are signs existing Tesla owners who have become disgruntled with Musk’s views are making their anger heard. Schwede contemplated selling his car, but after racking up more than 60,000 miles on it, there was little value left in it. So he came up with his own means of reclaiming his Tesla and the liberal ethos that had underpinned his purchase; he began donating 10 cents for every kilometre driven to a range of charities, countering Musk’s support of the far right with direct support to those who help LGBTQ+ youth or fight hate and extremism. “It was something Elon wouldn’t like,” he said. “That’s my personal revenge.”.

It’s a hint of how some Tesla owners in Europe are fighting back, putting up their own – albeit small-scale – resistance as Musk wades into global politics, using his wealth to help secure Trump’s return to the White House and his sprawling influence to back far-right and anti-establishment parties across Europe.

For Germany’s Patrik Schneider, the turning point came as he was heckled by a stranger at a petrol station, who pointed to his Tesla and called him a Trump supporter. Saddled with a long-term lease on the vehicle, he scrambled to find a way to address his relationship with a brand that – in his mind – had soured.

“Of course, as a Tesla driver you were always the fool: the Green party voter, the world saviour, the CO2 guy,” Schneider told Germany’s Capital.de media. “But now you’re in a category that’s no longer funny.”. What he came up with was a line of “Anti-Elon stickers” for Tesla cars. In an echo of an American initiative, he began selling the stickers online six months ago, taking orders for messages that range from “I bought this before Elon went crazy” to “Elon sucks.”.

As Musk waded more deeply into German politics, hosting the far-right AfD’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, in an interview on X and turning up at an AfD rally where he disparaged multiculturalism and lambasted the country’s focus on “past guilt”, demand for the stickers soared.

Demand has now climbed to as much as 2,000 stickers a day, with orders pouring in from across the German-speaking world but as far as Australia and South Korea. All of it was done without any advertising, said Schneider, adding wryly: “Elon Musk does that for us.”.

Others have called for the actions to go further. In Poland – where the Nazi German ioccupation led to the deaths of six million Poles, including three million Jews – the country’s tourism minister called on citizens to boycott Tesla after Musk’s surprise appearance at the AfD rally. “All I can say is that probably no normal Pole should buy a Tesla any more,” Sławomir Nitras recently told Polish broadcaster Tok Fm. “A serious and strong response is necessary, including a consumer boycott.”.

In August, German drugstore chain Rossmann said it would no longer buy Tesla cars for its corporate fleet, citing Musk’s support for Trump, while German energy company LichtBlick said on social media that it would be “pulling the plug” on the Tesla vehicles in its fleet, citing Musk’s backing of “a rightwing populist and extremist party”.

The message was echoed recently by UK-based campaign group Led by Donkeys after they said they had projected images of Musk’s salute on to the facade of the Tesla gigafactory near Berlin. Sign up to Business Today. Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning.