President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that attacks on Tesla dealerships will be classified as domestic terrorism. The declaration comes amid a series of violent incidents targeting Tesla locations in multiple states.
Trump made the announcement while inspecting a cherry red Tesla, which he personally purchased. “It’s beautiful,” he said while sitting in the driver’s seat. Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), joined Trump in the passenger seat, giving him a tour of the vehicle’s controls. Though Trump considered driving the car, he consulted with the Secret Service and ultimately decided against taking it for a test drive.
When asked about the recent attacks on Tesla dealerships, Trump made it clear that his administration would take strong action against those responsible.
“I’ll do it. I’m gonna stop ’em. We catch anybody doing it, because they’re harming a great American company,” Trump said. He emphasized Tesla’s role in providing American jobs and compared his stance to his previous support for American institutions like the NFL.
“When you hurt an American company, especially a company like this that supplies so many American jobs… those people are gonna go through a big problem when we catch them. We’ve got a lot of cameras up,” Trump warned. “We already know who some of them are. We’re gonna catch them.”
Trump further linked the perpetrators to broader societal disruptions, stating, “They’re the same guys that screw around with our schools and universities. The same garbage. No, we’re gonna catch ’em. Let me tell you, you do it to Tesla, you do it to any company, you’re gonna go through hell.”
The recent attacks on Tesla dealerships have occurred in Massachusetts, Colorado, New York, and Oregon. In Colorado, reports indicate that the attack was carried out by an individual who is transgender.
Trump’s declaration signals a major shift in how his administration intends to handle politically motivated attacks on businesses, promising aggressive prosecution and heightened security measures to deter future incidents.
