Tesla has been subject to a boycott as its CEO, Musk, has increasingly grown his influence in the White House through his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Criticism has piled up against Musk, the richest man in the world, not only because of the action DOGE is taking but also because he is not a democratically elected official.

The result has been that—contrary to the stock surge the EV maker enjoyed when President Trump won the election—Musk’s business is now subject to the public’s fury.

Tesla cars, showrooms, and charging points have been damaged beyond repair not only in the U.S. but also across Europe.

A couple of examples include Molotov cocktails being thrown at vehicles in Las Vegas, gunshots fired at a showroom in Portland, Oregon and charging points set on fire in Boston, Massachusetts.

In an interview with Fox News last night, Musk leveled the blame on politically left-leaning individuals who disagree with his alignment with a Republican politician.

“It’s really come as quite a shock to me that there is this level of hatred and violence from the left,” Musk said. “I always thought that Democrats were supposed to be the party of empathy and caring, and yet they are burning down cars, firebombing dealerships, firing bullets into dealerships, smashing up Teslas.”

This is a departure from the narrative previously touted by the President and his allies, who claimed the electric vehicle industry was the work of the left.

For example, in 2023, President Trump said EVs were “the idea of the Radical Left Fascists, Marxists, & Communists,” adding that within three years, the vehicles would all be made in China.

“Tesla is a peaceful company,” Musk continued to Fox News. “We’ve never done anything harmful. I’ve never done anything harmful, I’ve only done productive things.”

He went on to call the protestors “deranged,” adding: “There’s some kind of mental illness going on because this doesn’t make any sense.”

Musk went on to say he believed there are “larger forces at work” behind the attacks, asking: “Who is funding this? Who’s coordinating it? This is crazy, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Why are people boycotting Tesla?

Musk, who is worth $303 billion, said he believes his company is being targeted because of his work with the White House.

“It turns out when you take away … people’s money that they are receiving fraudulently, they get very upset. They basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla because we’re stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government,” Musk continued. “Well I guess they’re bad people. Bad people do bad things.”

Fraudulent payments doled out by the government have become a central argument in the justification for DOGE, with Musk and President Trump claiming social security payments being made to deceased individuals was a “huge” problem.

While previous administrations have admitted that fraudulently claiming social security is an issue, reports have provided wider context around the claims that “millions and millions” of people are doing so.

For example, a 2024 report from Social Security’s inspector general found that from 2015 through 2022, Social Security paid almost $8.6 trillion in benefits and made approximately $71.8 billion (0.84%) in improper payments. The majority of these were overpayments to people who are still alive.

Work was also being done ahead of Musk’s appointment to claw some of these funds back—in January, for example, a data-sharing scheme between the Social Security Administration and the Treasury Department prevented and recovered $31 million, bound for accounts of deceased individuals.

It seems that, in Musk’s opinion, it is the people who benefitted from such oversights that are now targeting his private sector interests.