How the Tesla brand turned so toxic

Today we’re talking about the protests against Tesla, which have been branded on social media under the hashtag Tesla Takedown. The protests are, of course, a reaction to Elon Musk, who has managed to install himself as basically a not-so-shadow president who is tearing the federal government apart, leaving confusion and destruction in his wake. 

A lot of people are deeply unhappy with this state of affairs. And because Musk is not an elected official but is, on some level, a car salesman, many of those frustrated and angry people are taking aim at the most visible and accessible symbol of his power and wealth: Tesla itself.

There are protests at Tesla showrooms and charging stations every weekend now, and they’re only getting bigger — and attracting police presence and threats of prosecution from the government. President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have said that any violence aimed at Tesla vehicles or property would be prosecuted as domestic terrorism. This is very Trump, in that there is not actually a specific federal domestic terrorism law, but you know… Trump.

In any case, these protests seem like they’re working; Tesla’s stock price has been sinking, new car registrations are down, and merely owning one has become uncomfortably political for a lot of people. We’re also seeing the hype around the company fading in ways that are frankly surprising — popular YouTubers are pointing out that vehicles like the Cybertruck simply aren’t very good and that Tesla’s missed ship dates and big claims about the capabilities of its self-driving tech don’t really hold up. And if the hype fades enough, it’s possible to break Tesla itself — it’s sky-high stock price is entirely based on hype, after all.

To help pull this all apart, I asked Ed Niedermeyer to join me on the show. Niedermeyer published a book about Tesla in 2019 called Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, and he hosts a podcast called Autonocast, about autonomous vehicle technology. His sizable following on Bluesky has also made him one of the leading organizers of the Tesla protests in Portland, Oregon, where he lives. So I wanted to bring him on the show to talk me through what he sees with both the big picture of Tesla as a company and on the ground with the ongoing protest movement.

There’s a lot happening and the story is changing fast, even since Niedermeyer and I talked at the beginning of the week. But that bigger picture — the disconnect between what he calls the “myth” of Tesla and the reality, and how that reality is now manifesting into a global protest movement — is shaping up to be the defining story of Tesla’s next chapter.

If you’d like to read more about what we talked about in this episode, check out the links below:

• Is Tesla cooked? | The Verge
• Elon Musk has become too toxic for YouTube | New York Magazine
• ‘Tesla Takedown’ wants to hit Elon Musk where it hurts | The Verge
• The Tesla protests are getting bigger — and rowdier | The Verge
• ‘Tesla Takedown’ protesters planning ‘biggest day of action’ | The Verge
• Tesla registrations — and public opinion — are in a free fall | The Verge
• Multiple Teslas set on fire in Las Vegas and Kansas City | The Verge
• Mark Rober’s Tesla video was more than a little weird | The Verge
• Tesla sales fell year-over-year for the first time | The Verge
• The Cybertruck isn’t all it’s cracked up to be | The Verge
• Tesla autopilot, FSD linked to hundreds of crashes, dozens of deaths | The Verge
• Tesla crash victims’ families worried about Musk influence on investigations | The Verge

_{Questions or comments about this episode? Hit us up at decoder@theverge.com. We really do read every email!}