onOn Saturday morning, I woke up to a notification nightmare. It got worse on Sunday. Elon Musk tweeted and amplified inflammatory lies about me and the Tesla Takedown. Musk tweeted: “Costa is committing a crime.”
As a longtime local activist and organizer in Seattle, I am used to some conflicts with powerful forces. The intention of the Tesla Takedown movement is to create a strong public stance against the high-tech Olivia behind the cruel and illegal actions of the Trump administration, encouraging Americans to sell Teslas and dump stock in the company. Such protests – peaceful, locally organized and spread throughout the world – are at the heart of freedom of speech at the cornerstone of democracy and American political traditions. So the response from the so-called “free speech absolutist” musk was to be single individuals and spread lies about us and our movement. The harassment that followed his post is horrifying.
It has also proven that the Tesla Takedown campaign is working.
I want to spread the lies around me by the world's wealthiest man and X users. I have not committed a crime. I am not funded by ActBlue or George Soros. Its name is simply a weary anti-Semitic dog whi. I'm not inspired by Luigi Mangion, and I've never said I am. I do not encourage vandalism. No one has been paid to come to these protests. I'm not a leader in Tesla Takedown. In fact, there's no one there.
The truth is: TeslaTakedown is a completely decentralized move with hundreds of protests around the world, drawing thousands of people from their homes to public sidewalks to confront programs that support the poor, elderly, veterans and illnesses. Care and concern for others – the concept of foreignness for those in power now – people offer what they can do to help. I provided it to Schlep Supplies and helped someone find the bull. The Seattle organization, which focuses on the environment, part of the troublemaker, hosts maps where others and groups can post locations for future demonstrations. The troublemaker has around $3,500 in his bank account. This is all bare bones, low budgets, people's movements. That's exactly why Musk is afraid of it, trying to find the villain.
Currently, 91 Tesla takedown protests are planned around the world this weekend, with more weekends coming in. If there is no one in the Tesla showroom closest to you, you can simply show up with friends and family and make cardboard signs. This exercise of our basic First Amendment, peacefully framed, gives effective outlets to the rage that this administration has caused here and around the world, and we are making a difference. Tesla stocks have fallen Suddenlylost a quarter of its value in the months since the protest began. On Wednesday, a JP Morgan analyst told Quartz: Donald Trump reached X this week to insist he would buy Tesla to support his good friend Mask. More and more people are dropping off their company stocks and selling cars. The movement is growing and the administration is paying attention. This is the effective objection when we are able to do what we can.
The false accusations of Mask against me do not stop this movement. Because he is causing real harm to the American masses and the people all over the world. In fact, Musk and Trump are crimes. Just this week they announced their intention to cut Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and food stamps. They suck up public institutions, strip off environmental protection, and make the economy and people's lives unstable. Musk is openly and willing to fire federal workers who are massively firing and dismantling programs serving millions of people in their homes and around the world. They ignored multiple judicial orders and refused to resume the ordered payments. The government's Ministry of Efficiency, the lead of unofficial agency masks, is delving into the system and pushing civil servants out when their staff aren't receiving as much as background checks. Mask's conflict of interest is piled up without disclosure. All the programs this administration is destroying are paid through our taxes by people like you and me. Tesla – A billion dollar company – Last year, he fired zero income tax. Justice through the government process is slow if it comes at all.
If we can't show opposition to what the government is doing, we live in a dictatorship. If we are criminalised for calling for something rich and powerful against their illegal activities, it is a dictatorship. I don't want to live in a dictatorship.
It's undoubtedly scary to be personally called by the wealthiest man in the world on the platform he owns. It's scary to target his dedicated trolls and bots at first glance. doxxed, to be rigorously exposed, plastered, attacked, and falsely accused of your life. It's still scary when the FBI director is tagged in a thread and asked to investigate. But I'm not retreating – and even if I did, it doesn't create any dents in this movement. Participating in the ways I have, if not thousands.
The truth is, people are powerful. I always believed that. And now we know that Elon Musk is doing that too.
