‘0 to 1939 in 3 seconds’: why anti-elon musk satire blooms in Great Britain

The naughty posters started to appear in London in the last two months.

On the side of a bus stop in Oost -Londen, one of them Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who comes from a Tesla’s roof with his hand up in one Straight -arming greetings. “Go from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,” is the advertisement. “Tesla. The Swasticar.”

Mr. Musk and President Trump shows another fake advertisement for a red Tesla with the words: “Now with white power steering.” In North London Blares, a fake film Billboard: “The Fast and the Führer”, with a photo of Mr. Musk who greetes a Tesla with a doge license plate in addition to a Tesla, a reference to the budget-lingering federal agency that he is currently leading on behalf of Mr Trump.

“Parental guidance,” warns the Billboard, placed by a group that calls itself, everyone hates Elon. “The CEO of Tesla is an extreme right-wing activist. Do not give him your money.”

In the British capital and in various European cities, Mr. Musk’s characteristic activities have become the target of the same kind of political anger that has fueled vandalism Van Tesla cars in the United States and sometimes violent protests against his dealers.

There have been one fallen From unmanageable protests and vandalism in Europe. But a large part of the anti-musk sentiment has taken the form of political satire, of the kind that has been flourishing in Great Britain since its at least the 18th century.

Just outside Berlin, a group called the Center for Political Beauty used powerful lights to project the word “Heil” on the side of a Tesla factory, so that the “Heil Tesla” reads, along with a photo of Mr. Musk greetings during a speech in Washington. In Italy, Street Art Elon Musk shows and removes a mask to show Adolf Hitler’s face underneath. The words “Elon Mask” appear above the photo.

“There has never been a target,” said John Gorenfeld, a software engineer who helped start a group-based group called “Takedown Tesla.” The group has organized protests from a few dozen people in recent weeks. They hold posters along highways that say, “Bank if you hate Elon.” And they have printed bumper stickers for Tesla owners with sentences such as “don’t make the same mistake” and “pre-2020 model”.

“Nobody who is so rich and powerful has behaved shamefully,” said Mr. Gorenfeld. “There is something Campy and ridiculous at the toxicity brand of Musk. And it opens a real space to ridicule.”

In Europe, Mr. Musk not only a distant example of American wealth and power. In the past year he has become a frequent political meddler, which often on behalf of roads of extreme right -wing causes On X, his social media platform, where he has 218 million followers.

In Great -Britain, Mr. Musk known for sharing wrong information about a rape scandal for children and to call to action Prime Minister Keir Starmer is imprisoned. He has called for the release of Tommy Robinson, an extreme right, anti-immigrant caritator Who’s prison contempt from the court. And he criticized the seven -year prison sentence of one Neo-Nazi that turned on And participated in anti-immigrant riots last summer.

The small anti-musk groups that have surfaced in Europe have the same basic goal: the share price and the sale of Tank Tesla as a way to send a message to Mr. Musk and other super-rich people who are thinking about promoting extreme right-wing politics around the world. Some groups refused to be interviewed about their actions, and mentioned concern about the target of Mr. Musk’s anger on social media. But others were more open about their goals.

“The purpose of this is to show Musk and other billionaires that they are vulnerable and cannot act with impunity,” said Ben Stewart, a founder of a British satirical activist group led by Donkeys, who worked with the Center for Political Beauty to Prast the image of Mr. Musk on the Berlin Factory. “We have to use worldwide public opinion to press back.”

Organizers think it works. The stock price of Tesla has almost halved since the High in December, around the same time that Mr. Musk began to supervise his controversial role on the dismissing of government employees and lowering the budgets of the federal agencies. This week Tesla reported a 13 percent decrease in sale Compared to a year ago.

“What they are trying to do is put enormous pressure on me, and Tesla I think, you know, I know, I don’t know,” Mr. Musk said in Wisconsin last week Where he campaigned for a candidate from the Supreme Court.

And yet he added with a shoulder pickup: “Long term I think Tesla Stock will do fine, so maybe it’s a buying option.”

The protesters who spoke about their goals said they have the influence of Mr. Musk wanted to challenge without resorting to vandalism The billionaire has called In the United States as “coordinated violence against a peaceful company.”

Theodora Sutcliffe, a resident of London who helped to organize Tesla Takedown, said none of the people she works participates in violence. Instead, they have tried to find other ways to attract public attention.

During one of their protests, a wavy, 20-foot balloon man who looked vaguely like Mr. Musk in the air. At other times, Mrs. Sutcliffe and her colleague demonstrators left pilots on the windows of Tesla cars.

“There was once that Teslas was cool,” says a kite. “Now, unfortunately, that is not the case. Managing a Tesla and the use of Tesla Chargers means that you support Elon Musk, a man who promotes climate deniers and fossil fuels.”

“If you want to go viral in the UK, you should be smart, I think,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “That is our sense of humor normal.”

The anti-mosk efforts in Berlin were led by Philipp Ruch, the artistic director of the Center for Political Beauty, a German activist group. In an interview he said that much of the anger at Mr. Musk in Germany comes from the billionaire support for the extreme right -wing party of the countryThe alternative to Germany.

“The first day that the administration comes in, he does the Hitler Salute,” said Mr. Ruch. “This is something that we could not tolerate, political and artistic.”

Mr. Ruch performs many of his protests by ‘overwriting’ one image with another. At the Tesla dealer he used lights for his words and images of Mr. Musk to be upper to create a new artistic creation. (He said that the police are now investigating his efforts, which were visible for about an hour.) Photos of the building were spread on a large scale on social media.

Other efforts have also become viral.

There are fake-car air fresheners called “musk-b-gone” who promise to cover “the stench of fascism”. And cardboard recesses from Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump, who thank Tesla owners for their support when they top up their cars at the company’s supercharger.

“There are people who come to Musk as if he is a kind of passive agent of Trump and that is really a different way to come to Trump,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “There are other people who experience Musk as someone who is a unique kind of threat that we have never seen before in terms of his economic control and control over the information room.”