Vandals targeted Tesla electric vehicles parked in Brooklyn in two separate incidents, etching swastikas in the door of one car in an apparent swipe at the company’s controversial CEO Elon Musk, police said Friday.
The back-to-back attacks come as Tesla has become a prime target in the ongoing opposition against Musk and his role as head of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency under President Trump.
The NYPD released surveillance images of two suspects in one of the acts of vandalism and is asking the public for help tracking them down.
The two men approached a Tesla parked on Monroe St. near Patchen Ave. in Bedford Stuyvesant at about 1 a.m. on Thursday and etched the word “Nazis” and a swastika on its side, marring a 2-inch by 2-inch section of the passenger side door.
The Tesla came equipped with a surveillance camera, which caught the vandalism, cops said.
A few hours later, in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, a 39-year-old man approached his Tesla parked near the corner of Hawthorne St. and Rogers Ave. and learned someone slapped a sticker on the driver’s side bumper.
The sticker had a swastika and the word “Musk” on it, police said.
Both incidents are being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force.
On March 6, a masked duo spray-painted a red swastika on a Tesla Cybertruck they found parked near the corner of Rivington and Chrystie Sts. on the Lower East Side, police said.
Trump administration protesters have zeroed in on Tesla electric vehicles since Musk began chain-sawing federal government spending and agency staffing as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Critics quickly likened Musk to a Nazi after he was recorded giving what some considered to be a Nazi salute during an event for Trump last November.
Earlier this month, nine people were arrested during a nonviolent “Pull the Plug on Elon Musk” protest at a Tesla dealership in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Similar protests have erupted across the country.
On the more extreme end, some Tesla vehicles and charging stations have been the target of violence and arson attacks. Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, recently branded these incidents “domestic terrorism,” vowing to throw the perpetrators “behind bars.”
Anyone with information regarding these recent acts of vandalism is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.