The mischievous posters began appearing all over London in the past two months. On the side of an East London bus stop, one of them shows Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, emerging from a Tesla’s roof with his hand pointing upward in a straight-armed salute. “Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,” the ad reads. “Tesla. The Swasticar.”
Another mock ad shows Mr. Musk and President Trump in front of a red Tesla with the words: “Now With White Power Steering.” In North London, a fake movie billboard blares: “The Fast and the Führer,” 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.
Across the British capital and in several European cities, Mr. Musk’s signature business has become the target of the same kind of political anger that has fueled vandalism of Tesla cars in the United States and sometimes violent protests at his dealerships.
There have been some instances 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.
Just outside Berlin, a group called the Center for Political Beauty used high-power lights to project the word “Heil” onto the side of a Tesla factory so that it read “Heil Tesla,” along with a picture of Mr. Musk saluting during a speech in Washington.
In Italy, street art depicts Elon Musk taking off a mask to show Adolf Hitler’s face underneath. The words “Elon Mask” appear above the picture.
There’s never been a target exactly like this. Nobody who is that rich and powerful has behaved that outrageously. There’s something campy and ridiculous about Musk’s brand of toxicity. And it opens up a real space to ridicule.
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 on X, his social media platform, where he has 218 million followers.
In Britain, Mr. Musk is known for sharing misinformation about a child rape scandal and calling for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be jailed. He has called for the release of Tommy Robinson, a far-right, anti-immigrant agitator who is in prison for contempt of court. And he criticized the seven-year sentence of a neo-Nazi who incited and took part in anti-immigrant riots last summer.
The small anti-Musk groups that have popped up around Europe have the same basic goal: Tank Tesla’s 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.
Organizers think it’s working. Tesla’s 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 compared with a year ago.
I think Tesla’s going to do fine, so maybe it’s a buying opportunity. The protesters who spoke about their aims said they wanted to challenge Mr. Musk’s influence without resorting to the vandalism that the billionaire has called out in the United States as “coordinated violence against a peaceful company.”
What they’re trying to do is put massive pressure on me, and Tesla I guess, to you know, I don’t know, stop doing this. Long term, I think Tesla stock’s going to do fine, so maybe it’s a buying opportunity.
The point of this is to show Musk and other billionaires that they are vulnerable and can’t act with impunity. We have to harness global public opinion to push back.
All of the posters were deliberate and it wasn’t a one-off. It was part of a larger plan. It’s a very simple and straightforward message that the people don’t support them, they don’t support their actions, and they don’t support their views.
The other creative initiatives included mock car air fresheners called “Musk-B-Gone” that promise to cover “the stench of fascism” and cardboard cutouts of Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump, thanking Tesla owners for their support when they top up their cars at the company’s supercharger lots.
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