Anti-Musk Sentiment Boils Over to Tesla Owners
57:44 Share

In the current climate, too many companies are just waiting to get to the other side. At IDEO, we partner with audacious leaders to build more courageous futures that take organizations from basic growth to real innovation. Discover more at IDEO.com. That's I-D-E-O dot com. Business. It's all day and into the night, and it's why all the businesses that keep the world turning choose Advanced Solutions in partnership from Comcast Business.

Powering more businesses than everyone. Powering possibilities. From KQED.

From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim. Coming up on Forum, anger and frustration over Elon Musk's doge and its drastic cuts to the federal workforce, among other things, have sparked protests outside Tesla showrooms in California and around the country. They've also left some Tesla owners feeling less than great about their cars as sales soar of bumper stickers that say, I bought this before Elon went crazy. If you have a Tesla, are you thinking of getting rid of it?

We take a closer look at whether the emerging Tesla takedown movement will dent Musk's profits and power. That's next on Forum. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. As backlash against Elon Musk intensifies for slashing the federal workforce, making gestures reminiscent of Nazi salutes, among other reasons, protesters are showing up in front of Tesla showrooms. And some Tesla owners are selling their vehicles, while some investors are shedding their stockholdings.

A listener looking to sell their Model 3 wrote in, Musk's use of the money he made through Tesla to influence our presidential election and his butchering of our government through Doge put me over the edge. I cannot in good conscience drive a car that has anything whatsoever to do with a man whose beliefs and actions are so antithetical to mine.

Listeners, are you among the people experiencing buyer's remorse? Or has the Trump administration in general affected what you're buying or swearing off these days? You can tell us by calling 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786, emailing forum at kqed.org, or posting on our social channels at kqedforum.org.

Joining me now is Clara Jeffrey, editor-in-chief at Mother Jones, whose recent piece is called Elon Musk, Apartheid, and America's New Boycott Movement. Clara, welcome to Forum. Thanks so much for having me, Mina. Thanks for being here. Frances Dinkelspiel is also with us, journalist and co-founder of Cityside Journalism Initiative, and her recent piece for Berkeley Side is East Bay Tesla Owners Attacked for Driving, Quote, Nazi Cars as Elon Musk Purges the U.S. Government. Frances, glad to have you on as well.

Thanks. So both of you have checked out some of the recent protests at Tesla showrooms. And Clara, you went to one in San Francisco. What was the atmosphere like? What did you notice?

Yeah, I went to one of the first ones there on the Tesla dealership on Van Ness. And, you know, it wasn't a huge crowd. They've gotten progressively bigger there and elsewhere since I first started going to these and tracking them. But a couple of things that I was struck by. One was that I met a lot of people who'd never been to a protest before, which in San Francisco is perhaps not typical.

And another thing is that I met Tesla owners and drivers, and Tesla drivers honked their appreciation as they drove by this protest. So it was...

It was telling that it wasn't it wasn't just folks who, you know, tend to mobilize for protests and that people who felt themselves that they not necessarily were complicit, but they just wanted to express their disgust at what was going on, even though they owned a Tesla. Yes. Francis, when you went to the one in Berkeley, you also talked with some Tesla owners there, too. What did they tell you about why they were there?

Well, a lot of these Tesla owners are feeling ashamed of the fact that they own a Tesla. You know, they bought it at a time when they thought they were doing something good for the environment. They love the car. I think most Tesla owners say it's a great car to own, but they can't stand being part of the machine that has created wealth for Elon Musk, who is now trying to dismantle the U.S. government.

So a lot of these drivers, you know, wanted to express the conflicting feelings that they have about the car by protesting. Of course, a lot of them don't feel like they can sell the car right now because they'll lose money. And so they're in a little bit of a quandary. Yeah, actually, listener Rachel, I think, reflects a little bit of that. Rachel writes this.

disappointed and ashamed as I am about the actions of Elon Musk. I won't sell my car. Why not? I won't get enough for it to buy another electric car of comparable range and quality. Claire, I'm curious, when you were talking with people, what you heard were some of the biggest drivers of Elon Musk's actions, like if there were some specific things that were making them want to come out that he's done recently? Yeah.

Well, I feel it sort of falls into two buckets. There were some definitely some federal workers there and folks who were this was, you know, pretty early on. The first one I went to was pretty early on in this sort of doge rampage through the federal government. But they were definitely specifically upset about that even before the contours of what they're doing were fully evident. But then, you know, it was also just Elon Musk's, you know,

apparent Nazi salute, his amplification and direct support of extreme far right wing groups around the world, his amplification of anti-Semitic and racist comments on X, and just his sort of general embrace and being a sort of locus of extremism.

Yeah. And Frances, you have talked about how some of the vandalism that's been reported by Tesla owners has been, well, in your headline, the fact that they're driving a, quote, Nazi car and things like that. What have you heard in terms of how cars have been attacked?

So just over the weekend, I saw a photo of two Teslas outside the service center of Tesla on Gilman Street in Berkeley. And one of them had their windshield broken and another one had been spray painted.

So there have been isolated incidents of graffiti and vandalism of Teslas. In addition, a couple of people in both Oakland and Berkeley have found flyers on their cars that have said something like, sell your car or we will get rid of it for you. Nazi cars are not welcome here.

So there are sporadic expressions of dislike for Musk taken out on owners' cars. And of course, you know, this is distressing because most of these people purchased their cars, you know, way before Elon Musk started, you know, supporting Donald Trump the way he has. And they're the ones who are ultimately, you know, suffering for his actions. So, Clara,

How big or organized do you think this anti-Tesla effort is? I mean, there's definitely a level of organization to the U.S. protests. There's, you know, Tesla takedown is a sort of convening, I guess you'd call it, led by Alex Winter, who's a documentary filmmaker, but folks might best know as Bill in the

and a Harvard, formerly Harvard disinformation researcher at Joan Donovan. And some other folks that have come from the car world are sort of the keepers of the documents of where the protests will be and that kind of a thing. But I think it's as many of these things often start out to be very organic and

There were already people showing up with signs outside of dealerships and so forth before Alex and Joan started kind of, you know, creating a webpage for people to organize and that kind of a thing. So I think that people are enraged and terrified about what's happening to the country and they're looking for a means to protest and a means to meet other people who feel the same. And, you know, if they can also, again,

impact Elon Musk's wealth and ability to dump money into political races and far right causes in America and around the world, then, you know, that's that obviously is an incentive as well. Yeah. You say there is a real strategy to this. What is that strategy? What is the goal?

I mean, effectively, the strategy is that he's particularly exposed because a good chunk of his wealth is tied up in Tesla stock. And even before all of this, even before he was Trump's biggest campaign donor, there was dissatisfaction amongst the sort of shareholder community that he wasn't paying enough attention to the company, that he was

You know, and as his sort of political activities became more and more pronounced and extreme, institutional shareholders were uneasy about it. He hasn't delivered on many of the things he's promised that Tesla would do, you know, a new cheaper car, a new sedan. He rolled out the Cybertruck, which has been a pretty complete disaster sales-wise.

So in some sense, the idea is if you can push the stock back down to where it kind of really should be even before this, because it's always behaved as sort of part car company and part meme stock. It's artificially inflated because of the sort of fervor and fan community around Musk and the sort of meme stock phenomena. And so the... And Elon Musk has been a big...

a big locus of sort of meme stock behavior and wild market swings and market manipulation. So the idea is basically what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And if the stock price can be driven lower, he won't have as much money. Perhaps the board would force, I mean, it's a very friendly board, but perhaps the board would force him out. Perhaps institutional shareholders would make a ruckus.

And any or all of those things is what I think the people organizing this from the top most want to see. I think for most people, they just want to express their understanding.

extreme unhappiness about what Musk and Doge are doing to the country. Yeah. Linda writes, we bought our Tesla Model 3 in 2019 and we anticipated that we would keep it for about 20 years. We like the car design, the technology and the lower environmental impact that Tesla was offering.

We are now so upset with his behavior and decisions that we are very conflicted. No one voted for him, and he is wreaking havoc that will be far-reaching and felt for decades to come. We are on the lookout for ways to impact his bottom line in 2025, and giving up the car only makes for more waste. Any ideas from listeners are most welcome.

Randy on Blue Sky writes, since I started investing in Tesla a decade ago, he has always been an embarrassment with his tweets. Hopefully he gets bored of Tesla and let someone else run it before he kills it outright with his crazy behavior and tyrannical ways. Tesla as a company is doing all the right things, but the shareholders, the board and Elon, not so much. But I'd still rather be on the side of Tesla than the oil companies themselves.

I'm curious, Frances, you know, do you think that the vandalism against Tesla vehicles could undercut these broader efforts or this sort of like nascent movement that become that could become more since they're likely targeting a good number of people who'd be sympathetic to their cause? Or do you think it's so isolated as to not to have too big of an effect?

Yeah, I don't think it's going to have too big an effect. And in fact, I kind of question whether these protests will have much of an impact at all, because, you know, Tesla's value has declined about $400 billion since the beginning of the year. The stock went up when Trump was inaugurated. It had a bump and now it's declined to around that same level.

And yet at the same time, the U.S. government is supposedly going to, you know, do a contract to buy Tesla Cybertux for 400 million dollars. So certainly, you know, Tesla is still a very strong car company. And, you know, Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. And as far as I can tell, he doesn't really care if his stock is dropping because he's got a lot of money.

We're talking about the backlash against Elon Musk and Tesla and protesters' hopes to hit Musk in his pocketbook. But will it work? We'll have more after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

In the current climate, too many companies are just waiting to get to the other side. At IDEO, we partner with audacious leaders to build more courageous futures that take organizations from basic growth to real innovation. Discover more at IDEO.com. That's I-D-E-O dot com. Get the limited-time-only Comcast Business 5-Year Price Lock Guarantee. It's five years of gig-speed internet and advanced security at a great rate that won't change. Comcast Business 5-Year Price Lock Guarantee.

Comcast Business. Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Protests have erupted in California and across the country outside Tesla showrooms and factories in a reaction to Elon Musk's actions, especially his drastic cuts to the federal workforce. We're talking about it with Clara Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting at the Center for Investigative Reporting as well. Frances Dinklespiel is also with us, journalist, co-founder of Cityside Journalism, who writes about

Thank you so much for joining us.

Have your consumer habits changed since Trump has entered office or over his administration's actions? You can tell us by emailing forum at kqed.org, finding us on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, threads at KQED Forum, or by calling 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786. Let me go to Hanaro in Oakland. Hi, Hanaro, you're on. Hello, how are y'all doing? Well, what's on your mind?

I think all the things, you know, like I put the sticker on the car a month ago. I visited dealerships to try to get rid of the car. Unfortunately, based on what we owe and what they give us, it's like a $10,000 difference. So it's just a kind of tough pill to swallow at this moment. But I think generally it is discussed with dealers.

Elon and Trump and kind of all the billionaire class. It's a little disgusting to have them running our country, dismantling our government, taking away people's jobs. And I'm not conflicted. I'm pretty clear that I don't want the car. It's more of a financial decision at this point, even though we've

You know, the car has been fine, but I'm also like, I don't want to support that type of ideology and these type of people. Well, Hennero, thanks so much for sharing where you're at with all this. I actually want to bring into the conversation now Matthew Hiller, who is owner of Mad Puff Stickers, which prints stickers with anti-Musk slogans. Matt, thanks so much for being with us.

I mean it. Thanks so much. So it sounds like you've seen a recent uptick in demand for your stickers.

Yes. You know, I've seen upticks throughout all his sort of major points since he's aligned himself with Trump. I mean, I saw a bump when he went on stage at the rally. I saw a bump when he, you know, officially sort of started donating money and made a big spectacle. But recently, the salute kind of put me into a whole new stratosphere. It just it seemed to a lot more people seem to take notice than ever before.

What are the most popular stickers that consumers seem to want of the ones you offer? Right now, I would say the most popular is the one that says Anti-Elon Tesla Club. Since it's a, you know, it's a kind of a cool logo. It's a little bit fun and it kind of, it just sort of shows, you know, that you're part of something on the road. You might see someone else with a sticker. And I see a lot of people tell me like, oh, I got a thumbs up from another driver as they drove by another Tesla sticker.

So I think that's definitely one of my most popular ones. And recently I have one that says Elon killed my resale value, which has definitely been picking up in the sales.

Yeah, and a sentiment that we've also been hearing from our listeners as well. Do customers share their motivations for ordering the stickers with you or share any anecdotes when they get them? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, the Etsy comments are a wealth of, you know, insight into these sort of situations. But yeah, I get, you know, I have a guy messaged me yesterday. He says, thank you for doing this. I need to let others know that I haven't consumed the Kool-Aid.

I have a guy or a daughter who sent a birthday present to his dad or to her dad and said, you know, happy birthday, dad. You better put this on your car. Yeah. And then this another guy said, like, you know, this is good for letting people that I know that I can't afford to sell my Tesla yet. So there's all kinds of different motivations that they want to either distance themselves from Elon or just sort of, you know, let them know that they don't want the car. And it's, you know, they're doing their best to get rid of it.

Is California your biggest market? And also where within California? I'm curious.

Yeah, since the beginning in 2023 when I started doing this, California was definitely the hotbed. San Francisco was certainly one of the largest cities where I've seen the stickers purchased. But now, to be honest, I don't even look where the orders are coming from. It's so many. I just am blindly just stamping the envelopes every night and just trying to get through it before 1 a.m.

As your profile, I know you've been interviewed by several outlets. As more people have heard about you, have you also heard from people who really support Musk? Any kind of sort of negative pushback on you or your company? No, I'm happy to say I haven't. I mean, the extent of the negativity that I've ever gotten was one Instagram message that ended up in my spam folder, and I just think it was a bot.

So I've heard really nothing but positivity from everyone. There's been nothing. I mean, I might attribute that to the fact that I don't have much of a social media presence. Perhaps if I did, I would get a little bit more message. But no, no. Well, Matt, really appreciate you coming on. Thanks so much.

All right. Thank you, Mina. Matthew Hiller is owner of Mad Puffer Stickers, which is seeing a big boom in sales as anti-Tesla sentiment goes up and generated by anti-Musk sentiment, essentially, which we're talking more about with Clara Jeffrey of Mother Jones and Francis Nicholspiel. Uh,

of Berkeley side co-founder of Cityside Journalism Initiative. You, our listeners are sharing with us where you're at with your Tesla or in general, in terms of purchases that you are not making or changes you are making in your buying habits as a result of the Trump administration.

This listener on Blue Sky writes, I'm extremely disgusted by Elon's actions over the last several months, but while charging options for non-Teslas are improving every year, they still aren't good enough that I would be prepared to do the 45,000 annual miles I do now in a non-Tesla. I'd buy a Tesla again to help the planet.

I'm very curious what you are seeing, Clara, in terms of Tesla sales or stock price, and if you do think it's – if it is going down, that it's a result of the growing anti-Tesla sentiment, or if you think it's just too soon to tell? Yeah.

Tesla stock price is down about 30% in the last month. And Tesla sales in California in January were down 12%. They're down catastrophically throughout Europe, like 65% in the last three.

And that's even as sales of E in both places, even as sales of EVs are rising generally. So, yes, I do think this is consumers given the choice of buying an EV that is associated with far right extremism and a owner who is denying food aid to the world's poorest people.

are making a different choice, you know, and that the California numbers, I mean, we'll see that that was, that was in January. That was before the worst of all this started to happen. So, um, I do think that consumers are making a choice and I just want to address something that one of the callers said, said earlier, of course, like I don't want to minimize at all that for most people selling off a car is a huge financial decision to make, but, um,

In terms of people considering a new EV, there are EVs with ranges just as long. Most people don't need the range that any of these cars offer almost always anyway.

And the infrastructure is improving for all of them. So, you know, that is what people are taking into consideration too. And what shareholders and stock watchers are also taking into consideration is that there's about to be a flood of EVs globally made in China, some made in Europe that are far cheaper than Tesla's and perform very well globally.

You know, tariff prices might hurt some of that for American consumers, but maybe not all of it. So it's a burgeoning market. He hasn't introduced a lot of new products that anybody wants. And then you have all the opprobrium heaped on him deservedly.

There is also a piece saying that Polestar was offering a trade-in for the Tesla that could be worth up to $20,000 and was doing well. Frances, was that hearing that you wanted to jump in here? Yeah, I just wanted to amplify one thing that Clara said. When Tesla first came to the market, it really was the only product on the market of its kind. And since then, so many auto manufacturers have introduced really excellent EV models. We own a Kia Niro model.

and love it. And it has a range of about 267 miles there. So the drop in sales, I do think can be attributed in part to Musk's actions, but it's also important to recognize there are many more options for consumers. And instead of just sort of having to buy a Tesla, if you want an electric car, they now can buy Mercedes or Volvos or Volkswagens. So some of the drop in sales are

I think comes in part because there's so many options on the market.

Well, Steve on Discord writes, while I have previously aspired to a Tesla, I no longer do so. For the record, this isn't new to Doge. It's a several-year-old stance. Musk has become someone I refuse to do business with. I'm no longer even willing to buy used because it keeps the used market elevated and makes depreciation resale part of the Tesla's, quote, value proposition. We recently bought a Chevy Bolt. Let me go to Lipika in Cupertino. Hi, Lipika. You're on. Yeah, hi.

Hi, go right ahead. You know, yeah, I just want to say that I'm like so disgusted with what Elon is doing with his Nazi salute and with the Doge activities that I have two Teslas. The very first one, Model S, that was, the SKU was less than 2000. And Elon actually himself checked that car. And the other car I have is Model 3. But what I've decided is that I'll go to a junkyard

get some Volkswagen or some other logos and change my logos of the car. I don't want to get associated with Tesla anymore. Lipika, thanks for sharing what you're going through and planning to do as your act of...

Rachel writes, I bought a Tesla out of concern for the environment and because I have a large solar array on my home. I believe that Tesla is more than Elon Musk. There are great engineers and workers who make it operate day to day. I hope that Tesla can do something to remove Elon and restore their reputation. Frances, I don't know if it was when you went to the protest, but you talked with some Tesla showroom employees yesterday.

Did they say anything to you? Are they noticing anything about potential slowdown in interest or sales or anything like that? So, yeah, I talked to some Tesla employees. This was before the first protest on February 14th.

And they said that they'd had sort of scattered protesters outside the showroom previously and, you know, it didn't really affect them. They did not seem concerned at all about the protest that was scheduled for a few days later. They said that they were plenty, plenty busy. However, uh,

This last weekend, there was a larger protest at Berkeley's 4th Street. And according to the Daily Cal, the showroom was closed. It was not open for business. And this is during normal business hours. So I think that that reflects, you know, sort of a shift from salesroom employees feeling like they can handle this to the situation, you know, accelerating to a point where they feel uncomfortable.

So I think that's significant. But, you know, I think the Cybertrucks haven't sold well, but the employees there said other cars were selling well. Frances, what can you tell us about how Elon Musk has responded to this? I think you mentioned, or maybe it was Clara who mentioned that generally doesn't seem to care.

Well, I don't think he's made any indication that he, you know, that these protests affect him. I mean, I think he's very, very busy trying to undermine the agencies that are investigating his various companies. According to the New York Times, you know, there were at least 11 government agencies that were looking into his business dealings, you know, having to do with

not only Tesla, but, you know, Starlink and his, you know, other companies

I'm forgetting the name of the one. We're going to space and stuff like that. Anyway, so I think Musk is much more focused on trying to undermine the agencies that can actually harm his other businesses. And I think he sort of thinks that all these protests, he just sort of dismisses people who do these kind of protests as worms, not serious, not thoughtful. He doesn't really take...

you know, agitators and protesters seriously, in my opinion. Tesla owners, are you feeling conflicted about your Tesla? You can tell us by calling 866-733-6786, posting on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram threads at KQED Forum, or by emailing forum at kqed.org. Or have your consumer habits changed since Trump has entered office over his

administration's actions. The CISNA writes,

Noel on Discord writes, the best way to really get anything to change would be to have a nationwide general strike. But we don't have the savvy to do this. Instead, we have these corporate chain boycotts of questionable value. Consumer boycotts need to be more targeted and persistent. Clara, I'd love your thoughts on this because your title for your recent piece of Mother Jones is Elon Musk Apartheid and America's New Boycott Movement. Can you talk about that?

You know why you see this as a new boycott movement and what maybe some of the vulnerabilities are to a boycott movement these days. Sure. Boycotts, you know, have been around for a long time. And I think the kind of two most famous ones are the, you know, grape boycott that Cesar Chavez started.

The United Farm Workers kicked off and the boycott and divestment movement of apartheid. More recently, there's been the BDS movement against Israeli companies over Gaza.

and Palestinian rights, I think that they tend to be most effective when they are targeted and when they tap into a larger sentiment and phenomena.

So the one that I was sort of recounting because I grew up during it was the anti-apartheid movement. Of course, people in South Africa had been protesting apartheid for decades. And in Britain, there had been a kind of consumer boycott. They did a lot more of that kind of trade with South Africa. But it took off in the U.S., you know,

You know, kind of in a remarkable fashion, there was a sit-in at the South African embassy led by civil rights leaders. And almost overnight, there were protests on college campuses everywhere. High school students like me who lived in D.C. went to the embassy as well. Celebrities of all stripes got involved, particularly the musical communities in both the U.K. and Europe.

and the United States released huge singles, had, you know, really put a lot of their cultural oomph behind it. And fairly quickly after all that started happening, things really started to change. The world withdrew its investment from South Africa. And, you know, within a few years, negotiations to wind down had started. And, you know, like a decade later, Nelson Mandela had been released, not only released from prison, but had become president. And so, you

It's, you know, who knows if this particular movement will do the specific aims of what the organizers want. But I do think that it is indicative of a swell of opposition that is sort of formless right now against what Trump and Musk and Doge in particular are doing. And so...

Can they? I mean, the hit on the Tesla stock price seems to be happening. The hit on sales seems to be happening. But I think it's almost more important in this case to see it as a sort of early indicator of broader national sentiment.

who are sort of following this on the news, they tend to follow the news more closely. Maybe they tend to be more left-leaning. But the anger and frustration and kind of rage is palpable. And this has given people a way to organize when, you know, in part, the Democratic Party has been kind of decapitated, you know, as happens when you have a big sea change like this.

And so this is sort of giving people a way to organize and they're doing it. We'll have more with Clara Jeffrey, Frances Dinklespiel and with you, our listeners right after the break. You're listening to Forum. Stay with us.

You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking about the backlash against Elon Musk and Tesla. Protests have erupted in California and across the country outside Tesla showrooms or factories, leading some Tesla owners to try and distance themselves from Musk. We're talking about it with Francis Dinkelspiel, a journalist, co-founder of Cityside Journalism Initiative, and

Francis's recent piece for Berkeley Side is East Bay Tesla owners attacked for driving, quote, Nazi cars as Elon Musk purges U.S. government. We're also talking with Clara Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of Mother Jones and at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Her recent piece is Elon Musk, apartheid, and America's new boycott movement. You, our listeners, are sharing your experiences either as Tesla owners or just people who are trying to figure out a way to show that

Your Unhappiness with Actions by the Trump Administration Economically. The email address is forum at kqed.org. You can find us on our social channels at KQED Forum, and you can call us at 866-733-6786. Josh in Santa Rosa, thanks for waiting. You're on.

Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm actually in my Tesla Y right now driving from Santa Rosa down to Cupertino. And, you know, I was a supporter of Tesla early on. I had bought Tesla stock, you know, more than two decades ago. And we were one of the first early testers.

Tesla 3s, and we have a Tesla 3 and a MyTesla Y. And I really believed in what Tesla was doing as an important step in making an affordable EV that could help change the habits of drivers. And I really think they've done that. And now, of course, I'm completely disgusted with what Elon stands for and consequently what I think Tesla stands for. I don't think, you know, one of my Tesla, my Tesla Y is leased, so I can't sell it.

but I look forward to buying one of the, um, stickers that your earlier, uh, guest had on something along the lines of, I bought it before, uh,

I knew that Elon was a nut and handing in the car with that sticker on it. But I also really am happy that at this point there is a lot of competition, that the market really has changed. And as has been pointed out, there are so many other options for people who want to own an EV or have an EV car that's affordable and can actually get the job done for having a car that can get them around. So I think the world has changed.

I think, unfortunately, Elon stands for something much bigger than Tesla, and I don't like at all what it stands for. And so the next EVs that I purchase will definitely not be Teslas. Well, Josh, thanks for sharing that. Yeah, go right ahead. I'd just like to make a point. I think it's true that Tesla helped build the sort of capacity and awareness for EVs in this country. But I also want to make very clear that he did that with enormous effort.

subsidies from the U.S. government. We wrote a piece back in 2013 about how he was trashing government subsidies for other things while accepting a huge amount for Tesla. That was before SpaceX and before Starlink, which has also been hugely subsidized. So there's this, which is not...

A common feature of him is that he will decry something for everybody else while also doing it himself. So he says that everybody else is impacting free speech. Meanwhile, he's blocking accounts on X and he's threatening journalists and he's doing all of these things.

I just want to make it really clear that there's a sort of hypocrisy here, too, and a hypocrisy that's particularly elevated with his sort of evisceration of the federal government. And yes, he's going after agencies in particular that he thinks are the weakest and the wokest agencies.

You know, as I write about, you know, they went after USAID in part to sort of nail its carcass on the on the wall and as a warning to other other agencies and other federal workers. But there's also, you know, there's also definitely true that he's going after the agencies that were investigating his companies for various labor and environmental and securities violations. And that, you know, there's a real motivation for him there, too.

Yes. And then, you know, Clara Francis brought up the $400 million deal with the State Department for armored Teslas potentially or $2 billion FAA deal potentially for Starlink and those kinds of things, you know, lucrative government contracts that maybe is contributing to why at least so far he's been treating the big drop in sales and the stock price for Tesla with a bit of a shrug.

I mean, quite possibly. And I also think in terms of that FAA Starlink deal, some of the things that he's doing directly, they might benefit him, but we don't know what a sort of sudden switchover to a new product would do to air traffic control. We do know that they're cutting the people who keep the nuclear weapons and materials safe. They're cutting things that are directly to the material safety of

of the American public with no apparent filter for safety, for efficacy, for really anything. It's a ideological endeavor that's happening. And to

describe it as an attempt for cost savings. I mean, that's what all the savings that they've claimed have, A, been, a lot of them have been debunked, and B, don't, all the savings they have claimed don't even amount to the current amount of subsidies that Tesla gets. It is, it is,

Not to we should not take what he's doing at face value of what the claims are. And I think that's starting to become really apparent to the public, which is, you know, very dislocating psychologically, I think, to everyone, which, again, is part of the reason why people are turning up to these events to seek community, really, as much as anything. Yeah.

Well, this is from Blue Sky Writes. Not only did I buy a magnet for my Tesla because it's leased, but I also visited a Polestar dealership in Marin and all the customers in the showroom were looking to get out of their Teslas too. The showroom organically became a cathartic therapy session. Frances, go ahead. I'm saying, I was going to say that I think Elon Musk is actually taking, um,

out a section of Trump's playbook, which is to make the most outrageous declarations and demands and sort of rattle everyone and go forward as if those are the truth and only later retreat when they get pushback or complications ensue. That's exactly Trump's playbook. And that's exactly what Musk is doing here.

I mean, as, you know, Clara mentioned, Doe just had to pull down all these claims that they've saved money from the cuts because it turns out some of those cuts were made before the Trump administration. They miscalculated a lot of the numbers. They double and triple counted some of the savings. So they are they're doing just what Trump likes to do, go out and say everything's corrupt. We're going to sort of take care of it by cutting all these agencies. And then

they're having to do some retreats and the courts are pushing back against a lot of the cuts as well and a lot of the stances that the administration is taking. So, you know, it is this kind of approach

approach of trying to scare and overwhelm all of us in order, I think, not to react. And I think that's one of the reasons these Tesla protests have been as effective as they are, because it gives people a place to protest.

I mean, people can protest in the national parks about the cuts that are happening there, but it's harder to protest about the cuts at USAD because there's no facility that you can go to to protest. But a Tesla dealership offers people a place to stand up and say, this is not our government. We don't like this. You've got to stop it.

I think that that's right. And I also think people are incredibly motivated by the fact that in addition to the other ideological goals of this, of DOGE, it is to justify tax cuts.

for billionaires like Elon Musk and Donald Trump. If they don't have the savings that they're claiming that will allow them to make these tax cuts, it's going to be harder to shove down the throats of the American public.

And that is why they are going after things like the poorest people in the world and park rangers and cancer research and, you know, the weather forecasting. I mean, things that are hurting farmers, things that are hurting the fishing fleets, things that are hurting homeowners, things that are hurting commuters. And it's all in the service of being able to claim they have enough money to give more money to them and their friends.

And certainly the new budget that's been put out by the GOP is a statement of policy, a statement of values and perspective.

Mary Lee writes, I bought a beautiful red Tesla Model 3 in late December 2018 because it supposedly had the best range and I wanted to move to a more environmentally appropriate car. But I've had buyer's remorse for several years. I learned from a Mother Jones article that there was a class action suit against Tesla for lying about the range. And that matches my experience with the car. I feel guilty every time I drive it and I'm nervous about having it damaged again.

by protesters with whom I actually agree. Another listener writes, Elon's controversial viewpoints precede his alignment with Trump. His views on labor, women, and government were well known and didn't stop people from buying Teslas. I feel that Tesla owners are attempting to rationalize their purchase by claiming that they bought them before he made this radical shift. That radicalism was always part of Elon. Francis, some states are taking action against Tesla, right? How and why are they able to do that?

Well, so it's interesting. This is something I hadn't realized previously. But in general, cars are sold through dealerships throughout most of the United States. And dealers are the ones who work with auto companies to put their cars on the lot. Tesla made a number of special deals with various states to set up their own independent retail stores to sell Teslas.

And there's been some pushback and some discussion among some states who are very concerned with the actions that Trump, Musk and Doge are taking to try to rescind some of those special contracts to make it impossible for Tesla to continue to offer cars directly to consumers. And, you know, I haven't seen this take place anywhere yet. However, there are discussions in some states about trying to do this.

Well, we are talking about backlash against Elon Musk and Tesla. That's taking many forms. We're talking about it with Francis Nicholspiel of Berkeley side, co-author, a co-founder of Cityside Journalism Initiative. And we're talking about it with Clara Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of Mother Jones and at the Center for Investigative Reporting. And you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Let me go to caller Mike in Mill Valley. Hi, Mike. You're on. Hi.

Oh, wow. Thanks a lot. Yeah, I've been hanging on. And what a great program. I got to say that. I just learned so much just listening this whole time. And love KQED, best station in the country. Listen, one thing I told the moderator, you know, this is like, I get it. I get why everybody's angry. I have

Half the country hates him. Half the country loves him. Goes for cars, goes for Trump. People knew what they were getting when they voted for Trump. They didn't care. They voted for him anyway. And he's doing even a worse job than he did the first time. But, you know, companies, I don't think this is going to hurt him. Okay. I get it. Trade your cars, sell your cars. People are damaging the cars. It's not going to hurt him because he's the richest man in the world and he'll find other ways. He's not going to go broke. But of course you have to protest. But you know something? I just want to throw this in. It's

It's like the boycott du jour in a way, okay? So I told the moderator, you've got Apple, you've got Google, you've got Microsoft, you know, Facebook, just name it. UnitedHealthcare, look what happened. Their stock went down, but are people boycotting United? They've done much worse. Can I please say this publicly? Much, much, much worse with

With thousands, tens of thousands of lives ruined, destroyed and ended because of their actions. So this is the rain. I took an action, obviously, but I'm just saying. But but but what do we do? Do we boycott United because of the horrible ethics that they have and these other companies that have? Yeah. Yeah.

Mike, thanks. Let me put your sentiment to Clara. I do hear this question about how effective can boycotts really be? Where do they end kind of thing? And I would love to get your thoughts on that, Clara.

I mean, only history can tell, right? Like some of them really work and have a huge impact. And some of them I think are, are so broad as to be impossible to track what, what impact they might've had. The sort of buy nothing days, I think are really good to sort of unite people and raise consciousness. Very hard to measure. But, but I do think that this has the feel of,

of something different, both because the stakes are higher. Of course, people...

vis-a-vis United or any healthcare company often don't have a choice what healthcare company they have to deal with. But here they do have a choice. Here you have a moment where people are looking for leaders and organizers and community to object to what's happening. And it's hard to know where any of this is going. I think we are entering an extremely volatile time in kind of every way.

So I would be an idiot to predict the outcome of this. But I do think that it's important and I think it's very telling the moment we're in. Go ahead, Frances. So our conversation has been focused mostly around Musk and Tesla dealerships and protests at the dealerships. I think it's important to acknowledge that on February 28th, there was an economic boycott

around the country where people were asked not to buy anything, particularly at Target and other places that had, you know, backed away from their DEI policies. I haven't seen any kind of number crunching on the impact of that. I know there's another economic boycott being called for March 7th through 14th against Amazon.

And, you know, that's a long period of time for people not to use Amazon. But, you know,

It's true. It's very hard to sort of know if any of these things have impact, but I do think they are being noticed. And if you even look at the numbers of people who are participating in the boycotts that started, you know, February 14th to now, they're getting bigger every week. And I do think that, you know, corporate leaders are going to notice when if shopping goes down, you know, maybe it will encourage some of them to speak up.

You know, we're in a place now where if any Republican opposes a Trump move or a Musk or Doge move, you know, Musk has said he'll go and he'll primary them out. So there's a lot of fear that's circulating, I think, in this country, and it's probably only going to get worse. And I think people...

participating in these protests will give some cover and encouragement for more of our leaders to speak up and speak out against what's going on. And I would add, I don't think you can really separate the momentum of these from the momentum of the town halls. These are two sides of the same coin. People

seeking out a physical space to protest what's happening, some with elected representatives, be they Republican or Democrat, and some at the kind of corporate nexus of the, you know, evil mastermind of Doge. But together, they signified something.

That's something important, I think. And we'll see where it goes. Well, certainly polling is showing that Musk's actions in the federal government remain very unpopular. You know, just in the 30 percentages is what people is the percent of people who actually feel favorable toward him. And of course, we are going to have Clara that joint address tomorrow.

address to a joint session of Congress by Trump tonight. I imagine, though, that he will probably bring up Elon and Doge despite its lack of popularity and maybe stand up for him in that speech, do you think?

It's a real it's a real. Yes, I think he probably will. I do think that that Musk is a could be an Achilles heel to Trump's own popularity. It he's he's much less popular than Trump. Both their popularity is falling.

But, you know, an unelected billionaire deciding you can't have your veterans benefits or your Social Security benefits or you can't go to Yosemite because the park can't handle the capacity with so few workers or all these things that are happening. It'll take time for them to really seep down into the, you know, into the far reaches of this vast and varied country. But they're being felt and they're being noticed and not just noticed by liberals in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Trump has invited Musk to be his guest tonight at the joint session. Well, Clara Jeffrey, thank you so much for talking with us. Francis DeGospell, thank you as well. My thanks to Matt Hiller, who joined us earlier, and as always to our listeners. Thanks to Mark Nieto for producing this segment. This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the

the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In the current climate, too many companies are just waiting to get to the other side. At IDEO, we partner with audacious leaders to build more courageous futures that take organizations from basic growth to real innovation. Discover more at IDEO.com. That's I-D-E-O dot com.

Get the limited-time only Comcast Business 5-Year Price Lock Guarantee. It's 5 years of gig-speed internet and advanced security at a great rate that won't change. Comcast Business.