As CEO Elon Musk ravages the federal government with chainsaws and fascist salutes, the wheels are coming off for Tesla — literally.

New local reporting by League City, Texas' KPRC-TV has uncovered an unusual heist in which thieves pilfered 44 tires from 11 unsold Teslas sitting in an Amazon warehouse parking lot over Valentine's day weekend. At least two tire lifts were attempted, though only one of them was successful.

The daring — and frankly kind of impressive — feat has stumped investigators, who say they have no leads, as the building's cameras weren't recording.

It's unknown why the Teslas were parked in an Amazon warehouse, a mere 15-minute drive from the nearest Tesla showroom, though a recent surge of vandalism and protests targeting the EV company might have something to do with it.

Though the thefts may or may not be politically motivated — automotive publication Jalopnik points out that the tires are worth about $350 a piece on the used market — they come at a time when anti-Tesla actions are heating up around the globe, resulting in arrests, investigations, and no small amount of pearl clutching from Musk's technocrat allies.

A few days ago in lower Manhattan, activists occupied a Tesla dealership — a nonviolent protest tactic dating back to the Civil Rights movement — as protestors of all ages demonstrated peacefully outside.

 

Video from Freedom News.TV captures the moment NYPD officers secured the storefront, swarming the front entrance and taking a number of activists into custody. Photos by Leonardo Munoz show the moment police formed a human barricade between the Tesla store and the protestors — a powerful image as Musk's interests become indistinguishable from the state's.

And what good is a dramatic transfer of power without some good old fashioned browbeating to back it up?

"These terror*sts are HELLBENT on scaring Elon Musk into silence," negged Nick Sortor, a right-wing media pundit with nearly one million followers on X-formerly-Twitter. In this scenario, the power of Musk's unfathomable wealth — not to mention his social media empire — is conveniently washed away.

"DOGE has very high approval from the people as a whole, but the grifters super hate it," replied Musk, who apparently hadn't seen the latest numbers.

While the "terrorist" epithet is laughable, the rhetoric from a high-profile Musk acolyte is noteworthy. It comes as Trump's team lays the groundwork for a new "War on Terror," expanding the definition of "terrorism" to include everyone from pro-Palestine activists to undocumented immigrants.

And Musk's supporters are taking the bait. "Folks who do this are domestic terrorists," seethed Larkin's Lair, an "adult collector" of Transformers toys, under a video of a vandalized Tesla. The toy enthusiast included a screenshot of the definitions for "terrorism" and "violence," seemingly neither of which they bothered to read.

While opinions will differ on the ethics of property destruction and theft, the move to lump "vandalism" in with "violence," and "protest" with "terror" is no accident. In the not-too-distant past, these tactics have been used to repress all kinds of progressive action, from workers movements to student marches to antiwar protests.

As the global movement against Musk heats up, the onus should fall on those in power not to conflate terrorism with theft  — even if their cars end up on cinderblocks.

More on Tesla protests: Wave of Vandalism and Protests Hit Tesla


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