Boycott

Paris, March 2025.

“Roman salute”, “unfortunate gesture of an autistic person”, “outburst of uncontrolled enthusiasm” were among the series of interpretations of Elon Musk’s (doubled) gesture during the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States of America. But the gesture was unambiguous for many people, activists, elected representatives and consumers. The next day, groups worldwide organised the ‘Tesla Takedown’, a series of actions aimed at destroying the company’s stock market value and, by extension, Elon Musk’s wealth.
The number of graphic signs associating Tesla, Musk and Nazism increased quickly.
Videoprojection of the gesture along a “Heil Tesla”in an adequate font in Berlin, defying German law, swastika paintings on the vehicles themselves, “swatiscar” stickers affixed to parked cars, demonstrations in front of the brand’s demonstration areas calling Musk a Nazi, or even hijacking of advertising space of the London tube.
Tesla vehicle owners are trying to dissociate themselves by displaying stickers such as “I bought this car before Elon went crazy” or, more radically, by staging the sale or donation of their vehicle. Less visibly, new and used car sales are collapsing, at least in Europe and Asia.
On this Parisian wall, the call for a boycott is doubly justified: textually, “the Nazi millionaire oligarchy” is vilely opposed; graphically, Elon Musk is now dressed in 3rd Reich military garb, standing in his car transformed into a convertible, in the image of the famous Mercedes carrying Hitler. This association is itself the result of a fake advertising. With this continuous circulation of signs, the brand is undoubtedly definitively doomed on the Old Continent, whereas only two years ago European governments were fighting to welcome Tesla-branded factories.