--- title: "Elon Musk Searching for Mysterious Billionaire Who’s Making Everyone Hate Tesla" description: "The world's richest man is blaming a shady cabal of Democratic billionaires for Tesla's plummeting sales and reputation" date: "2025-03-10" modified: "2025-03-10" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/elon-musk-billionaire-tesla-blame" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Tesla" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "investigation" - "protests" - "tesla" --- # Elon Musk Searching for Mysterious Billionaire Who’s Making Everyone Hate Tesla ![The world's richest man is blaming a shady cabal of Democratic billionaires for Tesla's plummeting sales and reputation]() *\Image: Jim Watson / AFP via Getty / HBO / Futurism\* Remember that [iconic skit]() on "I Think You Should Leave" where a hot dog-shaped car crashes into a building, and then as the crowd demands answers, a man in a hot dog outfit — who *clearly* crashed the car — appears and starts demanding that the driver be identified? "We're all trying to find the guy who did this," huffs the hot dog man, played by Tim Robinson. Well, that's pretty much the situation with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. He's spent the last few months rampaging through the federal government, resulting in an enormous amount of chaos and a [historic decline in Tesla sales]() that's currently causing the automaker's [stock value to collapse](). In other words, there's clearly a billionaire whose unpopular actions are responsible for Tesla's woes, and it's Musk himself. But the multi-hyphenate businessman, who's never been comfortable looking in the mirror, is instead blaming a shady cabal of Democratic billionaires for his self-inflicted woes. In a [post on the social network]() he spent $44 billion to purchase, Elon Musk claimed that an "investigation" had found that ActBlue, a fundraising platform used by liberal and progressive campaigns to raise money, is responsible for the increasing number of protests against his electric vehicle company. According to Musk, the mysterious investigation named five groups — Troublemakers, Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project, and the Democratic Socialists of America — that were "funded by" ActBlue and were the main drivers behind the spate of Tesla protests roiling the company in recent months. It doesn't take all that much investigative prowess, however, to find that [all of]() those [grassroots organizations]() have [publicly posted]() information [about protests]() against [Musk]() at [Tesla dealerships](). After erroneously claiming that a nonprofit fundraising platform is ponying up the money for nationwide protests, Musk claimed to call out ActBlue's founders. In his rush to place blame on anyone but himself, the South African emerald scion pointed the finger at George Soros, a fellow billionaire who acts as a [popular conservative punching bag](), and who doesn't have any documented ties to ActBlue. Along with Soros, Musk also named multiple other ActBlue "funders," including LinkedIn cofounder and [PayPal mafia member]() Reid Hoffman, progressive [oil money heiress]() Leah Hunt-Hendrix, [*ProPublica* financier Herbert Sandler](), and [Brennan Center patron Patricia Bauman]() — the latter two of whom, strikingly, are both dead. Were this level of "investigation" to be presented as-is in an undergraduate journalism class, the student behind it would probably fail. Musk, however, is no J-school pupil, and the final forte of his argument centers around a real-life recent [revelation from the *New York Times*]() about several senior ActBlue officials resigning from the nonprofit — though he claims, incorrectly, that they did so "this week" when that staff exodus reportedly occurred weeks ago. It remains unclear which investigation Musk is getting his information from. Both the House Republicans and an outside counsel hired by ActBlue's staff unions are looking into the nonprofit platform's practices, with the former alleging that some of its donations [broke campaign finance regulations]() and the latter presumably looking into whether those employees were subjected to wrongful internal retaliation. None of that context, of course, matters to the billionaire whose own donations [allegedly broke campaign finance law]() — especially because [he's the reason]() people [hate Tesla now](). **More on Tesla protests:** [*Arsonists Set Fire to a Dozen Teslas, Charging Stations Amid "Anti-Capitalist Coordination to Target Tesla"* ]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()