While talking to reporters earlier this week in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump joked about sharing the Tesla he purchased with White House staff. In response to a question about domestic terrorism against Teslas, Trump said he hadn’t heard any concerns about safety from the various staff that had driven the car. 

“We’d give it to [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Dan Scavino, but he’s got so much money it doesn’t matter. But they love the car, and it’s a great car,” Trump said. 

After reports of Teslas being vandalized, Trump held a press conference on the White House lawn in March to show off his new red Tesla Model S, which retails around $80,000, as well as his solidarity with Tesla founder Elon Musk.  

“I’m going to buy, because number one, it’s a great product, as good as it gets, and number two, because this man [Musk] has devastated his energy and his life to do this. And I think he’s been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people,” Trump said. 

Several months ago, the thought of Trump promoting any electric car company would have been hard to imagine. Progressives had celebrated -- and even self-identified with -- electric cars as a way to address the “climate crisis,” and pushed for policies to force people to drive them. The vehicles became a rolling symbol of leftist ideals, virtue signaling and the politics of climate change. 

Trump’s Tesla

Now that progressives direct their rage against Musk and his machines, the supposedly apocalyptic burning of fossil fuels has taken a back seat to their war on Trump’s policies, in the same way climate celebrity Greta Thunberg now dons keffiyehs and protests Israel. 

Ironically, the anti-Tesla ruckus from the left may make conservatives much more amenable to owning electric cars — or at least Teslas. Well before the Biden-Harris administration finalized rules that would require automakers to produce electric cars, driving low-emissions vehicles was a mark of pride for many liberals. In 2006, Comedy Central’s “South Park” ran an episode lampooning the smug attitude that some Prius drivers displayed.

Former President Joe Biden’s EV mandates only further politicized the vehicles, but sales slumped and automakers lost billions on their EV lines, obscuring Biden's vision. Trump campaigned on a promise to repeal the rules, and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris tried to distance herself from the EV mandates.

The recent wave of vandalism against Tesla may rebrand the EVs as a symbol of opposition to Trump’s critics. Last month, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, posed next to Trump’s Tesla and called it “the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” A couple weeks later, Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., was giving Trump’s Tesla the thumbs-up. “@ElonMusk sure knows what he’s doing!” the congressman said on X. 

Meanwhile, Democrats and their celebrity cohort are eschewing the once climate-saving cars. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., sold his Tesla to switch to a gas-powered Chevy Tahoe. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz stated he was delighted to see Tesla’s stock dropping, but later claimed he was only joking. Singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow was lauded in The Hollywood Reporter in a story titled "Sheryl Crow Says “So Long Tesla,” Donates Money to NPR: “Under Threat By President Musk.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., didn’t want to tell Fox News if she still owned a Tesla, citing “security reasons.” Fox also asked Ocasio-Cortez if she thought there was any connection between the vandalism and the anti-Musk rhetoric on the left, with some calling him a “Nazi” and “threat to democracy.” Ocasio-Cortez herself once called him a “leech on the public.” The congresswoman refused to respond to the question. She is currently vying for a leadership position in the Democratic Party who has  blamed violence on Republican rhetoric through a theory they called “stochastic terrorism.” Google searches for the term have fallen off considerably since Trump took office. 

Polls also show Republicans viewing Musk in a positive light by a considerable margin. A Quinnipiac University Poll last month showed 77% of Republicans approve of the way Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency are dealing with federal employees. That’s compared to 96% of Democrats who disapprove. 

A Pew Research Poll from February found that 73% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, as well as 84% of conservative leaning Republicans, hold a favorable view of Musk. 

That same poll also found that 85% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of the man. 

Tesla sales fell 13% in Q1 2025

While the violence against Teslas and their owners may have the unintended effect of easing conservatives’ aversions to Teslas (being EVs), it’s hard to say how much it will impact EV sales overall. Many carmakers reported solid sales for the first quarter of 2025, Motor1.com reported. General Motors saw a 94% increase in EV sales in the quarter, and Ford saw a 33% increase in EV sales.

Tesla’s EV deliveries fell 13% in the first quarter of 2025 over the same period last year. Tesla, which had been the leader in EV sales for years, came in second in global EV sales to Chinese automaker BYD for the first time in the quarter, according to Fortune. However, Tesla’s sales began slipping last year, well before the company became a target of liberal outrage. 

Likewise, Rivian, another pure EV automaker in the U.S. — but one that isn’t the target of vandalism — saw its sales fall 36% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year. 

Facing market forces

Tesla’s stock price was down 29.53% Thursday since Jan. 1. That was following a bump on Wednesday after Politico reported, based on anonymous sources, that Elon Musk would be stepping back from his role in the federal government to focus on his businesses. The White House called the article “garbage,” and Musk called it “fake news,” according to CNBC, but the stock closed 5% higher following the report. 

Aaron Turpen, an automotive journalist who has test driven and written about many EV models, told Just the News that the EV sales numbers looked better this first quarter, but it wasn’t by a whole lot compared to the sales of gas-powered vehicles. 

“Everybody was expecting much bigger numbers than that a year ago. I think electric vehicle sales are going to continue the way they've been, because there's a lot of good options out there,” Turpen said. He added that Tesla might not fare so well. The vandalism could drive up insurance rates, which are already high for electric vehicles, and that could disincentivize would-be Tesla owners. If people do sell their Teslas as a result of the vandalism, it could flood a used Tesla market that’s already notoriously low value. 

“Used prices for Teslas were already kind of iffy, and now they're plummeting,” Turpen said. 

"Think twice or think three times"

TJ Doan, a Cybertruck owner who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, told Just the News that he’s not had anyone do any damage to his Tesla truck. Doan has been a long-time fan of Teslas and said the vandalism hasn’t changed his appreciation for the cars. He loves his Cybertruck more than ever, he said. Wyoming residents voted for Trump more than any other state, but even in the deeply conservative state, there are plenty of Tesla drivers, according to Doan. He networks with other Cybertruck owners around Cheyenne  — a city of less than 65,000 people — and said he knows of at least seven other Cybertruck owners in the small city. 

He said they don't talk politics, so he's not sure how much that played a role in their purchases. It's likely they just like the trucks. Doan hasn’t heard of any of his Tesla-owning friends in Wyoming getting their car vandalized, but he points out that Wyoming has a very high rate of gun ownership. Cybertrucks are not the only Teslas targeted for criminal activity. 

“People should think twice or think three times before they start screwing around with someone’s car. They could end up hurt,” he warned.