- Activists used a Tesla to draw a slogan reading “Don’t buy a Tesla” on a beach in Wales.
- The protest was staged by the UK activist group Led By Donkeys to target Musk’s “bottom line.”
- It’s the group’s second anti-Musk stunt, after projecting an image onto Tesla’s Berlin factory.
A video posted Monday by the UK activist group Led By Donkeys shows a former Tesla owner using a harrow dragged by a Tesla to etch the protest into the beach at Black Rock Sands in Wales.
The slogan reads “Don’t buy a Tesla” alongside an outline resembling Musk’s controversial gesture at a Trump rally in late January.
The video features a woman named Prama, who said she drove a Tesla for six years. She said she started questioning her ownership when Musk “started getting onto the ticket of the extreme far right.”
Prama said there was “no turning back” for her after Musk’s “Nazi gesture.”
Musk has denied the gesture was a Nazi salute, calling the claims “ridiculous” in an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast last month.
Led By Donkey said in a Facebook post: “Thousands of people are ditching Tesla. Here’s one of them with a message you can see from space.” The slogan is said to be about 800 feet long.
A spokesperson for the group told BI the video’s message was “clear” — “to fight the oligarchs taking unaccountable power, we need to hit their bottom line.”
Led By Donkeys, initially set up as an anti-Brexit group, has frequently targeted Musk in recent months over his support for Trump and right-wing European parties such as Germany’s AfD. Its other stunts include projecting videos of his gesture on Tesla’s factory in Berlin.
Another activist group called Everyone Hates Elon has been placing paid-for advertisements on bus stops in London this month.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Tesla faces backlash, falling sales
The protests come as Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting efforts have sparked a backlash against his EV maker.
Some Tesla owners have vowed to sell their cars, some citing Musk’s work directing DOGE’s layoffs, his gesture at the Trump rally, and fear of being harassed.
Tech CEO Mitchell Feldman, a Tesla Model Y owner, told BI he was confronted in a parking lot while on his way to a concert in London. Tesla showrooms and vehicles have also become targets for protests and vandalism.
Tesla stock has been under pressure, falling 37% this year. Last week, JPMorgan analysts slashed their price target of the company by about 41% to $135.
“We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly,” they wrote.
While still comfortably the world’s richest person, Musk’s net worth has dropped by $121 billion this year to $312 billion following the slide in Tesla stock.
