Tesla dealerships nationwide have endured gunfire, Molotov cocktails and graffiti accusing CEO Elon Musk of being a Nazi, as vandals target the tech magnate’s businesses over his efforts with President Trump to overhaul the federal government.
A series of attacks at Tesla locations across the country were launched last week, according to local authorities, and have been joined by “Tesla Takedown” protests at dealerships in Maryland earlier this month and in Manhattan this weekend.
Police have criticized judges for being too lenient with the vandalism suspects they’ve arrested, including a court’s release of a transgender woman linked to a wave of attacks at a dealership in Loveland, Colorado.
“I couldn’t be more disappointed with a criminal justice system that would release an individual on a [personal recognizance] bond who placed incendiary devices at a Loveland business,” Loveland Police Chief Tim Doran said in a press release. “It’s incredibly challenging to keep our citizens safe from copycat behavior when there are no repercussions to lawlessness.”
Chief Doran suggested an attack at the dealership early Friday — which yielded no arrests — may have been inspired by Lucy Grace Nelson, a 40-year-old transgender woman who was charged last month with vandalizing the same dealership.
Police tied Ms. Nelson to a spate of property crimes at the city’s Tesla location between Jan. 29 and Feb. 11., including setting Molotov cocktails on fire and spray painting the phrase “Nazi” on the entrance sign.
Ms. Nelson had been behind bars until a federal judge released her last week.
Prosecutors argued the suspect should have remained in jail because police found a gun, a machete and pry bar in her car when she was arrested, according to the Loveland Reporter-Herald. Defense attorneys countered that none of those items were used in Ms. Nelson’s alleged offenses.
A gun was used in a separate attack on a Tesla dealership in Tigard, Oregon, last week. Tigard police said a gunman fired at least seven shots into the business around 1:45 a.m. Thursday, damaging three cars and shattering display windows.
Authorities haven’t released a description of a suspect.
Police in Oregon last week arrested a man after connecting him to two prior attacks on a Tesla dealership in Salem.
Federal court documents said Adam Matthew Lansky, 41, was arrested March 4 on accusations that he used Molotov cocktails to set a vehicle on fire in January, and shot at the business in February. Mr. Lansky is currently behind bars.
Police in Littleton, Massachusetts, said seven Tesla charging stations were set on fire last week. No suspect was arrested.
Also in Massachusetts, 39-year-old Harrison Grant Randall appeared Thursday in court in Brookline on charges of defacing property. Police said Mr. Randall placed stickers of Mr. Musk on strangers’ Tesla cars in an act of “free speech.”
On March 3, authorities in Baltimore County, Maryland, said a Tesla dealership was tagged with graffiti that said “No Musk” and a symbol that resembled a swastika. The incident happened after around 300 people protested outside the dealership in Owings Mills earlier that same day.
Roughly 100 demonstrators surrounded the Tesla dealership in Manhattan this past weekend, resulting in six arrests for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, according to the New York Police Department.
Mr. Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and close adviser to Mr. Trump, has been tasked by the White House with cutting $1 trillion in wasteful spending.
Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has audited multiple federal agencies since Mr. Trump took office. The temporary agency has angered Democrats, who are critical of Mr. Musk and the Trump administration’s swift firings of federal employees.
