On the lower east side of Manhattan this month, two men spray a red swastika on a parked Tesla Cybertruck. In the Meatpacking area of the municipality, six people sat on the floor of an Tesla exhibition space and refused to leave, chanting “Elon Musk is unclear, democracy must be protected” before being arrested. In Albany, legislators called on the New York State Pension Fund to unload Tesla Stock’s 3.5 million shares.
And in Harlem, Fred Brathwaite, an artist and pioneer hip-hop who goes from Fab 5 Freddy, decided that it was time to divide ways with Tesla Model 3, which he bought in 2019. His reasons had nothing to do with car performance. “It’s really like wearing a red Maga hat driving this car,” he said.
The New Yorkers once embraced Teslas as a rare traffic light of liberal green virtue who actually had some giddyap under the hooded anti-SUV that did not lead like a cup of herbal tea. But now, as cars are overshadowed by the leader of their company, this hug is shamelessly shaking as What- Haircut in an old class photo.
For Mr. Brathwaite, who loved his Tesla technology, and especially the stereo system, the turning point came when he watched Elon Musk’s chief executive, pushed his hand in a way that hit many to reflect a Nazi greeting.
“This was insanity for me,” Mr Brathwaite said. “And then I see people call it” Swasticar “.” Driving him once dear Tesla these days, he said, “I feel like hitting all these negative luggage.”
This will get rid of it.
It’s not alone. Tesla owners at national level are trading their vehicles at record rates, said Jessica Caldwell, Insights Vice President at Edmunds, who is watching new and used car sales. At the same time, he added, online interest in buying a Tesla has hit his lowest point since 2022.
Kara Li, an art historian in Brooklyn Heights, feels lucky to have negotiated with Tesla’s family during the summer, before the reaction gathered excessive impulse.
He described Tesla’s years almost as a relationship that went sour: I’m not me, it’s you.
When he first got the car in 2018, he said, with a tacit understanding that both the brand and the driver “were worried about the emissions and fossil fuels and the future of our planet”. But as the years went on, he said, “it became more focused on the worship of Elon Musk. This was not something that called us or that we wanted to associate.”
So they negotiated in their Tesla for an electric Ford.
New York is not historically a car city, but weekly demonstrations at Tesla Showrooms in Meatpacking and Brooklyn were some of the largest and most visible in the country and have led to 15 arrests for political disobedience, said Alice Hu, an organizer in Planet for one of his profits, Manhattan.
He said he expected that Saturday’s “Tesla Takedown” protest would be the largest, as protesters gather in more than 200 of the company’s 277 delegations in the United States and more in Europe.
They all contributed to a hectic era for Tesla and its investors. Vehicles have been put into fire or sliced American cheese, sales of hot cars have fallen and the company’s shares have fallen by almost 50 % since mid -December. On a bad day this month, Mr Musk’s net value decreased by $ 29 billion.
Last week, Tesla announced a recall of almost every cybertruck due to a problem with an external table. The recall was the eighth in the aesthetically divisive existence of the vehicle.
By citing both political and economic objections, lawmakers in New York are pushing to unload Tesla stock from city funds and government pension funds.
‘He started with moral and transparency in his own practices; And what he does with Doge, “said Patricia Fahy, a Democratic Senator who drafted a letter caused by state controller Thomas Dinapoli to assign the 3.5 million shares of the Tesla state.
A spokesman for Mr Dinapoli said the state retirement fund remained “committed to monitoring the risk for our investment and involvement of portfolio companies, including Tesla, to maintain and enhance the long -term value of our investments”.
In total, 25 senators signed the letter, all democrats.
Justin Brannan, a member of the Brooklyn City Council, who runs for the City Comptroller, called on the Town Hall to sell Tesla stocks of $ 1.2 billion to his pension funds, reminding the actions of previous auditors to provide fuel reserves. Mr Musk, he said, was bad for democracy in general, and bad for New York in particular.
The city should not “invest pension funds in a company owned and operated by someone who has New York in cross -hairs,” Mr Brannan said.
A spokesman for Brad Lander, today’s auditor, who is running for the mayor, said his office “explores all the choices, balancing our duty to New York pensioners and the long -term concerns we have created with Tesla.”
Of course, not all Tesla owners are ready – or capable – to abandon their wheels. For those who are not, there is a gusher of the magnet that causes blame, each of which reflects a different shade of anti-music feeling. Maybe this, from Zazzle: “Make this car not bother again.”
