East Bay Tesla owners attacked for driving ‘Nazi cars’ as Elon Musk purges US government

Frustration over Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn attacks on the federal government are spilling onto the streets of Berkeley and Oakland, where Teslas are being vandalized and flyers on Tesla windshields are calling owners Nazis.

Those angry that Musk, who is not officially a part of the government, is overseeing broad cuts to more than a dozen government agencies, are calling for protests at Tesla dealerships on Saturday. Artists are printing and distributing posters that call for a Tesla boycott. And some Tesla owners in Berkeley are expressing regret they own a car associated with a man they believe is assaulting the constitution.

Meanwhile, sales associates at the Tesla dealership on Fourth Street said Thursday that the showroom, which opened in December, has already weathered small protests and can handle any pickets on Saturday. Tesla makes exceptional electric cars and the associates focus on the product, not the man who owns the company, said the showroom manager, who did not want to share his name.

“At first, we loved it,” said Susan Helmrich of Berkeley, who purchased a white Tesla Model 3 in 2021. “It has a lot of amazing features. Everything about it was great until about a year ago when Elon Musk came more into the public domain. At that point, I couldn’t stand driving it, particularly when Musk and Trump became partners. I couldn’t stand having anything to do with the Trump administration.”

Helmrich attached a small “regret magnet” on her Tesla that read: “I bought this before I knew how awful he was.” She later attached a larger one. 

In early February, Tesla owners around California started finding threatening stickers and flyers on their cars. On Feb. 9,  an Emeryville man reported that he parked his Tesla near Vik’s Chat on Fourth Street in Berkeley. Someone posted a sticker reading “Mein Tesla. Fur Master Race Only! “ The sticker also had derogatory things to say about Jews and Black people, implying all Tesla owners are Nazi sympathizers. The man reported the sticker to Berkeley police, he wrote on Nextdoor. Officer Jessica Perry, BPD’s public information officer, said she could not find a record of the report. She is not aware of an upswell in vandalism against Teslas at this point, but police are aware of the rising tensions in the community, she said.  

John Ratto was walking on Hudson Street in the Rockridge district of Oakland on Feb. 2 when he spotted a flyer stuck on the windshield of a Tesla. It featured a picture of Musk doing a Nazi salute and read: “Sell your car or we will get rid of it for you. Nazi cars not welcome here.” 

The police department in Arcata in northern California reported that four Teslas had threatening flyers stuck in their windshields in early February, according to The Lost Coast Outpost, a local newspaper. The news organization received an envelope in the mail from a group calling itself SANE, which stands for Students Against Nazi Extremism. There was a note that contained “a manifesto, of sorts, and plan of attack,” the Outpost reported. “It calls Tesla CEO Elon Musk ‘an overt Nazi with a history of fascist, racist, misogynist and criminal behavior’ and describes a plan to ‘inflict physical damage to Tesla-branded vehicles’ over the next month or so.”

What Musk is doing

Musk donated $250 million to help elect Trump, who then appointed him to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency. But Musk is not an official government employee. He is acting in his capacity as a private citizen.

Musk has long railed against government regulations, complaining that they slow down business innovation. Before Trump’s inauguration, at least 11 departments of the federal government were investigating Musk’s various businesses, which extend from the computer screen, to the mind, to the car, to space, according to the New York Times. There were 32 investigations, including ones by the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Economic Opportunity Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into aspects of Tesla’s operations. Investigators were also probing Space X, Neurolink, and the social news site X. 

Many of those agencies have been decimated or undermined by Musk and Trump, which calls into question the future of those investigations, according to the Times. DOGE has also overseen the firing or suspensions of tens of thousands of federal employees, including many who oversee the country’s nuclear stockpile, although the courts have slowed those down. It has terminated millions of dollars of grants and completely eliminated USAID, which distributed millions of dollars in foreign aid to help countries with health care and other pressing social issues. 

Some of Musk’s claims and reasons for canceling the aid have already been debunked, including the contention that the Biden administration distributed $50 million in condoms to people in Gaza. Musk admitted at a recent press conference that was not true. 

DOGE is first reporting many of these actions on X, which Musk owns.

Fourteen states, including California, filed a lawsuit on Thursday to challenge what they characterized as Trump’s “unlawful delegation of executive power” to Musk and DOGE, according to the New York Times. 

“The 14 states argued that Mr. Trump had violated the appointments clause of the Constitution by granting sweeping powers to Mr. Musk, who has ‘transformed a minor position that was formerly responsible for managing government websites into a designated agent of chaos without limitation,’” the paper wrote.

The swift and broad actions by the Trump administration have unnerved many Berkeley and Bay area residents who are overwhelmingly liberal and vote Democratic. While thousands marched in the streets during the first Trump Administration, the protests in Trump’s second term have been smaller. 

There is no single organization organizing protests at Tesla dealerships. The group Anonymous posted a call for demonstrations on Bluesky and X. Others are joining in the call under the hashtag #teslatakedown.

The Action Network website is promoting the location of the Saturday protests. So far, more than 30 are scheduled around the country, including one at noon at the Tesla showroom in Berkeley.

“This Saturday, we hit Tesla showrooms everywhere,” reads the site. “Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines. Hurting Tesla is stopping Musk. Stopping Musk will help save lives and our democracy. The stakes couldn’t be higher. No one is coming to save us—not politicians, not the media.”

Tesla sales down in California

Musk’s actions, as well as his vocal support for right-wing groups in Germany, may be affecting sales. Sales in Germany dropped 59% in January and plunged in France and the United Kingdom, by 63% and 12%, respectively, according to Bloomberg News. Sales in California were down 11.6% in 2024, according to Newsweek.

The sales manager at the Tesla dealership in Berkeley, which has an $80,000 gleaming stainless steel Cybertruck on display in the middle of the showroom, declined to give specific figures but said his team was “very busy.” 

Anna Mantell bought her blue Tesla Model 3 in December 2021. While she loves driving the car — “it appeals to the teenage boy in me” — she now associates it with Musk and would like to sell. “I resent and dislike Elon, and it’s carrying over to the automobile,” said Mantell, who lives in Berkeley. 

Helmrich’s negative feelings about owning a Tesla came to an abrupt end on Jan. 11. She and her husband got into an auto accident. No one was hurt, but the Tesla was totaled. 

“The upside of the accident was that we bought an electric Volvo,” said Helmrich. “I’m very happy not to be driving that car [the Tesla].”