\n<\/p>\n
The mischievous posters began appearing all over London in the past two months.<\/p>\n
On the side of an East London bus stop, one of them shows Elon Musk, the world\u2019s richest man, emerging from a Tesla\u2019s roof with his hand pointing upward in a straight-armed salute<\/a>. \u201cGoes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,\u201d the ad reads. \u201cTesla. The Swasticar.\u201d<\/p>\n Another mock ad shows Mr. Musk and President Trump in front of a red Tesla with the words: \u201cNow With White Power Steering.\u201d In North London, a fake movie billboard blares: \u201cThe Fast and the F\u00fchrer,\u201d with a picture of Mr. Musk saluting beside a Tesla with a DOGE license plate, a reference to the budget-slashing federal agency he currently leads on behalf of Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cParental Guidance,\u201d warns the billboard, put up by a group calling themselves Everyone Hates Elon. \u201cTesla\u2019s CEO is a far-right activist. Don\u2019t give him your money.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the British capital and in several European cities, Mr. Musk\u2019s signature business has become the target of the same kind of political anger that has fueled vandalism<\/a> of Tesla cars in the United States and sometimes violent protests at his dealerships.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There have been some instances<\/a> of unruly protests and vandalism in Europe. But much of the anti-Musk sentiment has taken the form of political satire, of the kind that has flourished in Britain since at least the 18th century<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just outside Berlin, a group called the Center for Political Beauty used high-power lights to project the word \u201cHeil\u201d onto the side of a Tesla factory so that it read \u201cHeil Tesla,\u201d along with a picture of Mr. Musk saluting during a speech in Washington<\/a>. In Italy, street art depicts Elon Musk taking off a mask to show Adolf Hitler\u2019s face underneath. The words \u201cElon Mask\u201d appear above the picture.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s never been a target exactly like this,\u201d said John Gorenfeld, a software engineer who helped start a London-based group called \u201cTakedown Tesla.\u201d The group has organized protests of several dozen people for the past several weeks. They hold posters along freeways that say \u201cHonk if you hate Elon.\u201d And they have printed bumper stickers for Tesla owners with phrases like \u201cDon\u2019t make the same mistake\u201d and \u201cPre-2020 Model.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNobody who is that rich and powerful has behaved that outrageously,\u201d Mr. Gorenfeld said. \u201cThere\u2019s something campy and ridiculous about Musk\u2019s brand of toxicity. And it opens up a real space to ridicule.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Europe, Mr. Musk is not just a faraway example of American wealth and power. Over the last year, he has become a frequent political meddler, often weighing in on behalf of far-right causes<\/a> on X, his social media platform, where he has 218 million followers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Britain, Mr. Musk is known for sharing misinformation about a child rape scandal and calling for<\/a> Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be jailed. He has called for the release of Tommy Robinson, a far-right, anti-immigrant agitator<\/a> who is in prison for contempt of court<\/a>. And he criticized the seven-year sentence of a neo-Nazi who incited<\/a> and took part in anti-immigrant riots last summer.<\/p>\n The small anti-Musk groups that have popped up around Europe have the same basic goal: Tank Tesla\u2019s stock price and sales as a way of sending a message to Mr. Musk and other super-wealthy people who are thinking of promoting far-right politics around the world. Some groups declined to be interviewed about their actions, citing concern about becoming a target of Mr. Musk\u2019s ire on social media. But others were more open about their aims.<\/p>\n \u201cThe point of this is to show Musk and other billionaires that they are vulnerable and can\u2019t act with impunity,\u201d said Ben Stewart, a founder of a British satirical activist group called Led by Donkeys, which worked with the Center for Political Beauty to project Mr. Musk\u2019s image on the Berlin factory. \u201cWe have to harness global public opinion to push back.\u201d<\/p>\n Organizers think it\u2019s working. Tesla\u2019s stock price has almost halved since its high in December, around the same time that Mr. Musk began his high-profile role overseeing the firing of government workers and slashing federal agency budgets. This week, Tesla reported a 13 percent drop in sales<\/a> compared with a year ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhat they\u2019re trying to do is put massive pressure on me, and Tesla I guess, to you know, I don\u2019t know, stop doing this,\u201d Mr. Musk said last week in Wisconsin<\/a> where he was campaigning for a state supreme court candidate.<\/p>\n And yet, he added with a shrug, \u201cLong term, I think Tesla stock\u2019s going to do fine, so maybe it\u2019s a buying opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n The protesters who spoke about their aims said they wanted to challenge Mr. Musk\u2019s influence without resorting to the vandalism that the billionaire has called out<\/a> in the United States as \u201ccoordinated violence against a peaceful company.\u201d<\/p>\n Theodora Sutcliffe, a London resident who helped organize Tesla Takedown, said none of the people she works with are participating in violence. Instead, they have sought to find other ways to capture public attention.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At one of their protests, a wavy, 20-foot balloon man who vaguely resembled Mr. Musk saluted into the air. At other times, Ms. Sutcliffe and her fellow protesters have left fliers on the windshields of Tesla cars.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce upon a time, Teslas were cool,\u201d one flier says. \u201cNow, sadly, that\u2019s not the case. Driving a Tesla and using Tesla chargers means you\u2019re propping up Elon Musk, a man who promotes climate deniers and fossil-fuel junkies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to go viral in the U.K., you have to be smart, I think,\u201d Ms. Sutcliffe said. \u201cThat\u2019s our sense of humor normally.\u201d<\/p>\n The anti-Musk efforts in Berlin were led by Philipp Ruch, the artistic director for the Center for Political Beauty, a German activist group. In an interview, he said that much of the anger at Mr. Musk in Germany stems from the billionaire\u2019s support for the country\u2019s far-right party<\/a>, the Alternative for Germany.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first day that the administration comes in, he does the Hitler salute,\u201d Mr. Ruch said. \u201cThis is something we couldn\u2019t tolerate, politically and artistically.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Ruch performs many of his protests by \u201coverwriting\u201d one image with another. At the Tesla dealership, he used lights to superimpose his words and images of Mr. Musk to create a new artistic creation. (He said the police are now investigating his efforts, which were visible for about an hour.) Pictures of the building were spread widely on social media.<\/p>\n Other efforts have gone viral, too.<\/p>\n There are mock car air fresheners called \u201cMusk-B-Gone\u201d that promise to cover \u201cthe stench of fascism.\u201d And cardboard cutouts of Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump, thanking Tesla owners for their support when they top up their cars at the company\u2019s supercharger lots.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some people who are coming at Musk as though he\u2019s some sort of passive agent of Trump and that really, this is just another way of getting to Trump,\u201d said Ms. Sutcliffe. \u201cThere\u2019s other people who perceive Musk as somebody who\u2019s a unique type of threat that we really haven\u2019t seen before in terms of his economic control and control of the information space.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n