The Schelmischen Poster appeared all over London in the past two months.
On the side of a bus stop in East London, one of them shows Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who emerges from a Teslas roof and points his hand in one upwards just armed greeting. “Go from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,” says the advertisement. “Tesla. The Swasticar.”
Mr. Musk and President Trump shows a different false indicator in front of a red Tesla with the words: “Now with white power control.” In Nord-London Blaret a fake film Billboard: “The Fast and the feeling” with a picture of Mr. Musk, who, next to a Tesla with a Doge number tag, is a reference to the budget Slashing federal authority, which he currently heads on behalf of Mr. Trump.
“Parents’ instructions,” warns the advertising table, which hates Elon from a group called itself. “Teslas CEO is a right -wing extremist activist. Don’t give him your money.”
In the British capital and in several European cities, Mr. Musk’s characteristic business has become the goal of the same kind of political anger that was heated vandalism From Tesla cars in the United States and sometimes violent protests at his dealers.
There were some Instance of unruly protests and vandalism in Europe. But a big one The 18th century.
Near Berlin, a group called Center for Political Beauty Beauty High-Power Lights used to project the word “Heil” on the side of a Tesla factory so that it was “Heil Tesla” and a picture of Mr. Musk Greeted during a speech in Washington. In Italy, Street Art Elon Musk shows a mask to show Adolf Hitler’s face underneath. The words “Elon Mask” appear above the picture.
“There has never been such a goal,” said John Gorenfeld, a software engineer who founded a group based in London called “Takedown Tesla”. The group has organized protests several dozen people in the past few weeks. They hold posters along motorways who say: “Horn when they hate Elon.” And you have printed car stickers for Tesla owners with phrases such as “don’t make the same mistake” and “model before 2020”.
“Nobody who is so rich and powerful has behaved so indignantly,” said Gorenfeld. “It has some Campy and ridiculous on Musk toxicity brand. And it opens a real room to be mocked.”
In Europe, Mr. Musk is not just a far away example of American prosperity and power. Last year he became a frequent political interference that often weighs in the name From right -wing extremist causes On X, his social media platform on which he has 218 million followers.
In Great Britain, Mr. Musk is known to share misinformation about a rape scandal for children and call Prime Minister Keir Starrer is to be detained. He called for the publication of Tommy Robinson, a right -wing extremist, Anti-immigrant agency Who is in prison for Contempt of the court. And he criticized the seven -year prison sentence of A Neonazi, who has excited And took part in unrest against immigrants last summer.
The small anti-musk groups that have appeared all over Europe have the same fundamental goal: the share price and sales of Tank Tesla to send Mr. Musk and other handing over a message to promote right-wing extremist politics around the world. Some groups refused to be asked about their actions and quoted concern to become a goal of Mr. Musk’s anger on social media. But others were more open about their goals.
“The point of this is to show musk and other billionaires that they are vulnerable and cannot act with impunity,” said Ben Stewart, founder of a British satirical activist group called Donkeys. “We have to use global public opinion to push back.”
The organizers think it works. Tesla’s share price has almost halved since his high December, around the same time when Mr. Musk began his top -class role in the supervision of dismissing government employees and the reduction of the federal authority’s budgets. This week Tesla reported 13 percent Decline in sales Compared to one year.
“What you try to do is massively put pressure on me, and Tesla, I think you know, I don’t know to stop doing it,” Mr. Musk said last week in Wisconsin Where he fought for a candidate of the state’s Supreme Court.
And yet he added with a shrug: “In the long term, I think Tesla Stock will do it well, so it may be a purchase opportunity.”
The demonstrators who talked about their goals said they wanted to challenge Mr. Musk’s influence without using vandalism that The billionaire called In the United States as “coordinated violence against a peaceful company”.
Theodora Sutcliffe, a London resident in London, who organizes Tesla Takedown, said none of the people with whom she worked with violence. Instead, they tried to find other ways to attract public attention.
In one of her protests, a wavy, 20-foot balloon man who vaguely resembled Mr. Musk was up. At other times, Ms. Sutcliffe and her colleagues left flyers on the windshields of Tesla cars.
“Once it was, Teslas was cool,” says a plane. “Well, unfortunately this is not the case. If you drive a Tesla and use Tesla Chargers, you can support Elon Musk, a man who promotes climate deniers and fossil centilators.”
“If you want to become viral in Great Britain, you have to be smart, I think,” said Ms. Sutcliffe. “This is usually our sense of humor.”
The anti-musk efforts in Berlin were led by Philipp Ruch, the artistic director of the Center for Political Beauty, a German activist group. In an interview he said a big one Support for the extreme right -wing party of the countryThe alternative for Germany.
“On the first day on which the administration comes in, he Salute the Hitler,” said Ruch. “We couldn’t tolerate that politically and artistically.”
Mr. Ruch carries out many of his protests by overwriting another picture with another. In the Tesla dealer, he used lights to overlay his words and pictures of Mr. Musk to create a new artistic creation. (He said the police are now investigating his efforts, which were visible about an hour.) The pictures of the building were widespread on social media.
Other efforts have also become viral.
There are sham car freshly called “Musk-B-Gone” that promise to cover the stench of fascism “. And cardboard cuts by Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump, who thanked the Tesla owners for their support if they dissolved their cars on the company’s Supercharger.
“There are some people who come to musk as if he were a kind of passive agent from Trump, and that is really just another way to get to Trump,” said Ms. Sutcliffe. “There are other people who perceive musk as someone who is a unique type of threat that we have really not seen in terms of its economic control and control of the information space.”
