GLOBAL days of action highlighting the strings Elon Musk is pulling in countries across the world have one clear aim — to challenge, disrupt, and ultimately take down Tesla.
In a reported Tesla first quarter-earnings conference call recently Musk told company bosses that he would be allocating more of his time to Tesla and said he would be “significantly” cutting back on his work for Donald Trump’s government.
Musk’s leadership of the newly created advisory body – theDepartment for Government Efficiency, or Doge – has been widely criticised as it had overseen widespread cuts to the US government.
This, alongside his far-right political views, has sparked protests at Tesla dealerships around the world, and pledges from many to boycott the firm.
Musk may still be the world’s wealthiest man, but he no longer represents invincibility to shareholders.
His salute in January at the inauguration was a firing-gun for activists who had already been watching Musk “wreaking havoc on with normal people's jobs, across the US and across government,” Theodora Sutcliffe, a Tesla Takedown organiser, told The National.
Protests organised by the grassroots campaign have only grown with action seen across the US, Europe, the UK and Scotland.
“The thing about Musk is whether I talk to people in Australia, or Germany or Spain, or the Netherlands or whatever, they've all got their own spin on something horrific that Elon Musk is doing in that country.
“So, in, England, obviously, specifically, it's Tommy Robinson, in Germany, it's the AFD, etc.”
“Protesting Musk is an opportunity to have an impact globally, it's not exclusively an American thing, which is why it's taking off outside the US as well.”
Musk has weighed in on Scotland’s Hate Crime Act; criticised Keir Starmer’s Government over the UK’s handling of child grooming scandals; supported and amplified messages from Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party; and has publicly supported Romanian far-right outsider Calin Georgescu following allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.
Tariffs aren’t necessarily helping Tesla either, with market uncertainty also hitting the company. “Tariffs are still tough on a company when margins are still low,” said Musk in the call.
And this is what the Tesla Takedown campaign wants to target.
The logic behind a consumer boycott
“You can object to Trump as much as you, but the fact remains he's a democratically- elected president, whereas Musk is not only unelected, but he's hugely vulnerable because of his share price.”
The price of a company’s high earnings ratio expresses how much you would pay for a share, versus how many years it would take you to get that back through the revenue that is generating.
Google’s is around 18. Tesla's is 151.
Sutcliffe said: “So even though the company’s stock has fallen by 31%, it's really overvalued. That's why when we keep saying it's got a long way to fall, that's what we mean.
“The only reason it's that high is that people believe that maybe they'll be humanoid robots one day which seems unlikely.”
Sutcliffe described a picket the group did at a pop-up store in Oxford Street in London, which had a robot in the window, adding: “I kept waiting for the robot to do something, move or to come at us, and we concluded at the end of the picket it must just be the most expensive mannequin ever.”
The group believes the boycott can be effective because of the company’s overvalued earnings ratio, so it’s achievable to make the stock price collapse to “something more realistic”, like Google has.
“At that point, because the way Musk looks after his money to avoid paying tax, obviously you can't just keep £300 million in the current account at the bank – that's not how it works – what he does is he takes his money out in the form of loans secured on Tesla's share price.
“And if Tesla's share price drops below a certain level, the people who've given him the loans go: ‘Oh, we're going to need more collateral’.
“At which point he has a problem. He either has to sell Tesla shares, which then drives panic and drives things down even further, or default on it.”
The group currently has 11 organisers across the UK, with Bristol, London and Nottingham most prominent.
Protest have taken place in Scotland, albeit with small groups which Sutcliffe put down to the location of the Tesla dealerships.
“These Tesla dealerships tend to be very, very out of the way. There's always a limit to the numbers who are going to be physically protesting."
Sutcliffe also highlighted Musk’s other businesses, Starlink and Twitter/X, arguing people should be boycotting those as well.
The Scottish Government continues to use Tesla and Starlink despite Musk’s views.
"It needs to start being questioned from a security perspective as well as the ethical one because he's an agent of a power.
"Do you really want your broadband to rely on Elon Musk?," she asked.
“But there's other things we're doing, such as leaving leaflets under Tesla screen wipers, asking them to sell their cars.”
More Tesla owners are choosing to sell their car, with an increase in the amount of second cars being sold across Scotland. However, not everyone has that option, Sutcliffe stressed.
“We get Tesla drivers coming up to us who say, ‘I'm really supportive of what you're doing, but my car is leased, and I literally cannot afford to give it back’.
“They’re sort of stuck in this situation. One woman told us she would have to pay them money to give the car back now because of the depreciation of the leasing it."
Sutcliffe also points to the groups’ campaign calling on Octopus Energy to scrap its leasing deal with Tesla.
“They’re such a progressive company, all about green energy. It's very positive, and LGBT+ supportive, and its supportive of the Gaydio Awards in Manchester, and yet they've got a leasing deal where people can buy Tesla’s.
“I’d be really, really interested to hear what they say about that because it's something that a company like that should not be doing, not in 2025."
Octopus Energy did not respond to a request for comment.
