Elon Musk Is the One Who Set Tesla on Fire

Musk has blamed the company’s woes on a “conspiracy” against him, including demonstrations at Tesla showrooms and anti-Tesla vandalism against vehicles, charging stations, and dealerships. (The administration has now vowed to prosecute the perpetrators for “domestic terrorism.”) As Musk complained to Fox News recently, alleged conspirators “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.”

It makes sense that people are taking their anger out on Tesla. With Trump’s blessing, Musk is sending legions of asocial goons out to take a sledgehammer to basic government functions. Aside from the threats he poses to Medicaid, Social Security, and lots of other things that keep people alive, Musk is also an unnerving guy to have to pay attention to: an unseemly, anti-charismatic, profoundly unfunny pest with a thin skin and a penchant for substances that exacerbate his most annoying qualities. As a “special government employee,” he is also broadly unaccountable. Whereas most of us will never get the chance to yell at Musk face-to-face, we may well see a Tesla driving down the highway or parked on the street. Protests against Tesla are of a piece with boycotts against companies like Amazon and Target for rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion measures, along with heated Tea Party–style protests at town halls against Republicans (for furthering Trump’s agenda) and Democrats (for not doing more to stop it).

But Musk’s business troubles go well beyond the “TeslaTakedown” protests—whose organizers, for what it’s worth, have denounced violence and vandalism. The myriad safety issues plaguing Tesla point to much broader issues with the company’s business model. Its competitors might just be better at making cars. The Trump administration’s own policies aren’t helping, either.