Billionaire and tech tycoon Elon Musk said he’s in “shock” over escalating protests against his auto company Tesla.
“It’s really come as quite a shock to me that there is this level of real hatred and violence from the left,” Musk said during an exclusive interview on “Hannity” Tuesday.
“I thought the left, you know, Democrats, were supposed to be the party of empathy, the party of caring. And yet they’re burning down cars. They’re firebombing dealerships. They’re firing bullets into dealerships. They’re just smashing up Teslas,” he continued, although no evidence has confirmed the political affiliation of the alleged suspects involved.
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Multiple vehicles at a Tesla service center in Las Vegas were set ablaze in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and the FBI is not ruling out terrorism as a possibility. Officials say five vehicles were damaged in the incident, including the two that were set on fire.
FBI officials were asked about the possibility of the incident being politically motivated, given Musk’s ties to the Trump administration, but the Special Agent in Charge would not confirm whether that was the bureau’s current theory.
Musk spoke out against the “deranged” attacks, suggesting “there’s some kind of mental illness thing going on here because this doesn’t make any sense.” The billionaire even alluded to “larger forces” potentially behind the attacks that have sprung up across the nation.
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The Tesla founder had previously spoken out about Tuesday’s incident on X, posting “This level of violence is insane and deeply wrong. Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these evil attacks.”
Tuesday morning’s incident comes as a wave of Tesla car owners, dealerships and charging stations have been targeted nationwide in protest against Musk and his involvement with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which aims to slash wasteful spending and fraud within the federal government.
“It turns out when you take away… the money they’re receiving fraudulently, they get very upset. And they, they basically 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,” Musk told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Attorney General Pam Bondi released a statement Tuesday evening: “The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind, including in cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences. We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”
The investigations into Tuesday morning’s incident in Las Vegas and other incidents nationwide are ongoing.
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Fox News Digital’s Rachel Wolf and Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.
