Elon Musk said late Tuesday there are people who want to assassinate him over his government-cutting work and that “hatred and violence from the left” is responsible for attacks on dealerships for his Tesla cars.
Mr. Musk said he is worried about the U.S. going bankrupt, so he is aggressively cutting federal staff and spending through his Department of Government Efficiency under President Trump.
He said that’s come with personal consequences, claiming he’s faced death threats and pointing to Tesla dealerships that have been shot at and firebombed.
“It turns out when you take away people’s, you know, the money that they’re receiving fraudulently, they get very upset,” he told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “And they basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud and they want to hurt Tesla because we’re stopping the terrible waste and corruption in the government. And, well, I guess they’re bad people. Bad people do bad things.”
Mr. Musk also condemned a website, Dogequest, that reportedly listed the names and addresses of Tesla owners across the U.S. The site managers say they’ll only remove the information when owners prove they’ve sold their Teslas.
“Encouraging destruction of Teslas throughout the country is extreme domestic terrorism!!” Mr. Musk posted in response.
SEE ALSO: FBI opens terrorism probe after arson attacks at Tesla dealers
Mr. Musk’s slash-and-burn march through the federal workforce sparked pushback from Democrats and protesters who have given GOP lawmakers an earful at town hall meetings. A series of court decisions have blocked or reversed DOGE’s efforts, and Mr. Musk has admitted to making mistakes at times.
Mr. Trump is supporting Mr. Musk, however, and brought a showcase of Teslas to the White House to support his car company as Tesla comes under attack.
The president labeled the attacks domestic terrorism, and Mr. Musk says a central force is orchestrating the attacks.
“I mean, who’s funding and who’s coordinating it? Because this is crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Mr. Musk said. “Tesla is a peaceful company, we’ve never done anything harmful. I’ve never done anything harmful, I’ve only done productive things, so I think we just have a deranged.”
“I think there’s some kind of mental illness going on here,” he said.
