One evening after a work event, a friend offered me a ride home. It had been a while since we carpooled, so I was surprised when we entered the parking garage and he pointed to a 2024 blue Tesla Model Y.
“This is me,” he said. We spent the next 20 minutes debating why the car he purchased last year should not be “him.”
He offered the usual arguments: $1,000 annual savings on gas, the relative ease of charging a Tesla in Georgia compared to other EVs and the fact that Elon Musk’s actions and beliefs are no different from any other rich, white male industrialist who has designed the cars we drive.
“He is arrogant, he’s a jerk and he’s destroying our country, but he makes a fine car,” said my friend, who did acknowledge that he has concerns about safety given the recent protests aimed at Tesla cars and their drivers. “I don’t tell anyone I drive a Tesla,” he said.
Tesla cars worldwide have been spray painted with swastikas, keyed in parking lots and, sometimes, sold at a loss by owners who no longer want to be associated with a Musk creation.
I can’t think of many cars that are so intimately associated with the company CEO.
My friend echoed the words printed on bumper stickers that now plaster the rear of some Tesla cars in metro Atlanta, “I bought it before Elon went crazy,” he said.
Two things from that conversation stuck with me. First, allowing our cars to form the basis of our identity (“this is me”) is the stink of capitalism that we can’t seem to shake. And second, anyone who thinks Musk’s erratic behavior began last year hasn’t been paying much attention.
It is true that in the past year Musk said his transgender daughter was “killed” by “the woke mind virus.” And yes, he gave that weird Nazi-esque salute. And sure, he’s currently turning the controversial Department of Government Efficiency into a one-man wrecking crew.
But nothing about this feels new or even out of character.
In 2010, he publicly excoriated his soon-to-be ex-wife and mother of six of his children. (One child died as an infant.) Musk now has 14 children. He has been sued for fraud at least three times by the Securities Exchange Commission — in 2018, 2023 and 2025. Business partners, executives, employees at his companies are all on record detailing the rage and fury in which Musk operates, noting his anger is inevitable.
His behavior has always been erratic, but we have elevated him to savior status by allowing his accomplishments to overshadow his deficiencies.
Here’s a wake-up call. Musk has spent more than two decades since founding SpaceX showing us exactly who he is — a man driven by his desire to colonize Mars in time for his retirement.
Elon Musk isn’t invested in saving this country. He is ready to exit this planet.
Why would he care about preserving democracy on Earth?
Our treatment of Musk, the man, is not unlike our early view of the automobile he created. Remember the days when his electric marvel was hailed for its high performance but maligned for its ordinary looks? Similarly, we praise Musk as an innovator with a great mind while we ignore the holes in his person.
“If a Tesla wore pants, they’d be Dockers. Pleated ones, smelling of Tide, flanked by a dangling convention lanyard,” Ian Bogost wrote in the Atlantic in 2015. Bogost predicted Tesla would rid us of our passion for luxury cars by being the least sexy supercar on the market.
My friend claims his Tesla is a magnet for women, but any woman who is impressed by a car deserves whatever lies under the hood. In a Tesla’s frunk — the word used to describe the empty storage space in the front of the car — that’s a whole lot of nothing.
I’m not suggesting Musk is empty, but watching the world’s richest man profit from billions in government contracts while axing federal workers is definitely giving soulless.
Georgia is one of the top 10 states for electric vehicles, with just over 85,000 owners in 2023. About 26% percent of EV owners in the state drive Teslas.
This weekend, the official Tesla Takedown makes its way to metro Atlanta with a planned protest at the showroom in Decatur. Early this week, more than 60 potential protesters had signed up.
Laura Gordon, the event organizer, is new to activism but was so stupefied by the relative indifference some people have to Musk and his actions that she had to do something.
Though opposed to the kind of property damage and trespassing that have threatened Tesla owners in recent weeks, Gordon believes Tesla drivers should not shrug off the impact of their choices in the same way society has minimized Musk’s deficiencies.
“I believe people should divest from Tesla in any way they can,” Gordon said. “They should sell their vehicles, and they should sell their stock.”
I’m not sure how many Tesla drivers are ready to part with their cars in protest, but Tesla investors have parted with their dollars, with the company losing about $550 billion since the presidential inauguration.
Meanwhile, Musk is busy slashing jobs and posting sophomoric humor on social media while warning us of “temporary hardships.”
Soon, he’ll be living it up on Mars leaving the rest of us to muddle through down here on Earth.
Read more on the Real Life blog (www.ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/) and find Nedra on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and X (@nrhoneajc) or email her at nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
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