Anger at Elon Musk turns violent with molotov cocktails and gunfire at Tesla lots

The woman in the black hoodie walked onto the Tesla car lot prepared to inflict damage. She came with four Smirnoff Ice bottles filled with gasoline, flung them at electric vehicles parked around the dealership and watched as they burned.

Over the course of 13 days starting Jan. 29, according to court records, Lucy Grace Nelson made repeated trips to the Tesla car lot in Loveland, Colorado. Once, she spray-painted “Nazi” in black under the dealership’s entrance sign, according to court documents, and another time, she ignited a molotov cocktail near a Tesla Cybertruck. She also allegedly used red spray-paint to scribble a message on the car dealership’s entrance doors: “F— Musk.” Nelson’s lawyer declined to comment on the case.

Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, more than a dozen violent or destructive acts have been directed at Tesla facilities, according to court documents, surveillance photographs, police records and local media reports reviewed by The Washington Post. The incidents come as Elon Musk has rocketed to prominence as Trump’s best-known backer and as a conservative provocateur in his own right. The ire directed at the tech billionaire online has increasingly spilled into real life, with vandalism directed at Tesla storefronts, charging stations and vehicles.

In March, several Tesla superchargers at a shopping center in Littleton, Massachusetts, were set ablaze. Vandals in Maryland also spray-painted “No Musk” onto a Tesla building, alongside a swastika-like symbol. In February, a man brandishing an AR-style semiautomatic weapon fired at a Tesla storefront in Salem, Oregon. Just a few weeks earlier, investigators say, the same man attacked the same dealership by throwing molotov cocktails at Tesla vehicles and through the store window. He caused an estimated $500,000 in damage, according to court documents.

Anger at Elon Musk turns violent with molotov cocktails and gunfire at Tesla lots
Anger at Elon Musk turns violent with molotov cocktails and gunfire at Tesla lots
© Fire Chief Steele McCurdy/Littleton Fire Department/Fire Chief Steele McCurdy/Littleton Fire Department
The destruction adds to the woes of a carmaker already in turmoil. Its stock has fallen by more than 35 percent since Trump’s inauguration, and last year, the company suffered its first annual sales drop in more than a decade. In Germany, Tesla car sales plummeted by 76 percent in February compared with a year earlier, according to figures released Wednesday. And some owners have expressed buyer’s remorse over owning a car some now see as a symbol of far-right politics, a stark departure from the environmental consciousness it once epitomized.

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Ross Gerber, a longtime Tesla investor and Musk critic, said the reports of destruction against Tesla storefronts, cars and superchargers could create a “chilling effect.” Customers “may not want to associate … with Elon and deal with vandalism,” he said.

The billionaire’s car company is no stranger to public ire. Last year, the Tesla factory near Berlin lost power after a far-left environmental organization, the Volcano Group, claimed responsibility for setting fire to an electricity pylon near the plant. Months later, around 800 environmental activists attempted to storm the same factory. Some employees and investors have begun to speak out about Musk, worried that his alliance with Trump is harming beyond repair the company’s reputation and mission of building a more sustainable future.

Demonstrators are arrested by NYPD officers while protesting Elon Musk and Tesla outside of a Tesla showroom on Saturday in New York.
Demonstrators are arrested by NYPD officers while protesting Elon Musk and Tesla outside of a Tesla showroom on Saturday in New York.
© Adam Gray/AP

Police officers monitor a Tesla protest camp in the forest near a car factory in Grünheide, Germany, in November.
Police officers monitor a Tesla protest camp in the forest near a car factory in Grünheide, Germany, in November.
© Lutz Deckwerth/AP
But Musk’s political perch since Trump took office has increased polarized views about him. He has forged relationships with far-right politicians in Europe and made a gesture resembling a Nazi salute. Demonstrators have gathered outside Tesla showrooms across the United States to protest Musk’s dramatic cuts to federal government through the U.S. DOGE Service.

“Whether it is politically motivated or not, arson and destruction of property is not the way to get your point across,” said Matthew Pinard, the police chief of Littleton, where several Tesla chargers were lit on fire this past week.

Musk and Tesla did not return requests for comment. In response to a photo posted on social media of a supercharger spray-painted with the word “Nazi” last month, an official Tesla social media account said the company “will press charges for vandalism at Superchargers.”

Charred Tesla
Adam Choi and his wife were leaving church Sunday morning in Brookline, Massachusetts, when they noticed their Tesla had been vandalized with a sticker of Musk in his now notorious raised-arm pose. Choi, 37, spotted the suspected vandal across the parking lot and pulled out his phone.

“Why do you think you have the right to do that?” Choi said in the video, shared with The Post.