An appeal for an international anti-fascist campaign against Tesla
Over the last few weeks, Tesla has become the target for a growing, largely social-media-organised campaign across the United States. This past weekend alone, CNN reported:
“Demonstrators gathered at more than 50 Tesla showrooms across the United States on Saturday in protest of CEO Elon Musk’s role in slashing government agencies as part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency established by President Donald Trump.”
This was probably an undercount. If you follow the mainstream media alone, you’ll miss out on some protests. Our protests in Chicago have received no media coverage, and there has been scant coverage of protests in the suburbs. While many protests have been organised by Indivisible, a nationwide campaigning group of liberal and progressive Democrats, the outpouring of protests at Tesla showrooms is much greater than one organisation.
Musk is despised by millions of people around the globe. The world’s richest man and best-known Nazi, Musk personifies everything that is wrong with the world today. Tesla takedown is a positive development in the struggle against the Trump regime and fascism in the United States. Henry Ford comes to mind as the last major auto industrialist who was identified closely with fascism. In many ways, Ford thrusted political antisemitism into the mainstream of US society through his newspaper the Dearborn Independent. But Ford was on the wrong side of the New Deal and preparations for WWII.
Today, according to Harold Meyerson:
“Fast-forward now to Elon Musk, who today has no qualms about neo-Nazis ruling Germany. Quite unsolicited, Musk has tweeted (X-ed?) his way into Germany’s parliamentary election, which will be held next month, beginning by arguing that ‘only the AfD can save Germany’.
“The Alternative for Germany is a far-right, vehemently anti-immigrant and racist party that has grown in strength, particularly in the economically depressed states that were formerly part of East Germany, since it was founded a dozen years ago. Musk has argued that it’s not a neo-Nazi party, but a number of self-professed neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers have been in the party’s leadership, while the German government views it as a potentially violent threat to German security.”
Yet, unlike Ford, Musk had attained political power that a few years ago would have been unimaginable. Musk is, however, vulnerable. His interventions in European politics have led to plummeting Tesla sales. Tesla’s stock has declined significantly. Major pension funds have dropped their ownership of Tesla stock, and prominent people have sold their cars. The various Tesla models have gone from being seen as saving the environment to being viewed as Nazi vehicles, like the Volkswagen in the 1930s.
Like Henry Ford, Musk is a fanatical opponent of unions in his workplaces from California to Sweden to Berlin. We see Tesla workers as our allies. Ford was the last of the Big Three US automakers to be unionised by the United Auto Workers (UAW) in 1941, following a bitter strike on the eve of US entry into the Second World War. Musk’s political power can ultimately only be curtailed if the workers in his car and battery plants are organised.
There is still much to do in the United States to combat Elon Musk, but more needs to be done internationally. Tesla takedown is a rare opportunity for anti-fascists, climate change activists, and supporters of trade unions and democratic rights across the globe to come together with one target. We should make the most of this opportunity now. Organise or join protests at Tesla outlets in your country. Our international unity will make a difference.
Joe Allen is the author of The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service.
Bill V. Mullen is Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Purdue. He is co-author, with Jeanelle K. Hope, of The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back From Anti-Lynching to Abolition, and, with Christopher Vials, of The US Antifascism Reader.
