On Saturday morning, I woke as much as a nightmare of notifications. On Sunday, it received worse. Elon Musk had tweeted and amplified inflammatory lies about me and Tesla Takedown, a rising nationwide grassroots motion peacefully protesting at Tesla showrooms that I’m proudly part of. Musk tweeted: “Costa is committing crimes.”
As a longtime native activist and organizer in Seattle, I’m accustomed to some battle with highly effective forces. The intention of the Tesla Takedown motion is to make a powerful public stand towards the tech oligarchy behind the Trump administration’s merciless and unlawful actions, and to encourage People to promote their Teslas and dump the corporate’s inventory. Protests like these – peaceable, regionally organized, and spreading internationally – are on the coronary heart of free speech in a democracy and a cornerstone of US political traditions. So it’s telling that the response from so-called “free speech absolutist” Musk has been to single out people – and unfold lies about us and our motion. The harassment that’s adopted his submit has been scary.
It’s additionally proof that the Tesla Takedown marketing campaign is working.
I’d like to deal with the lies unfold about me by the world’s richest man and X customers. I’ve not dedicated any crimes. I’ve not been funded by ActBlue, or by George Soros – that identify is solely a drained antisemitic canine whistle. I’m not impressed by Luigi Mangione nor have I ever mentioned that I’m. I’m not encouraging any vandalism. No one is getting paid to come back to those protests. I’m not the chief of Tesla Takedown. In actual fact, nobody is.
Right here is the reality: Tesla Takedown is a totally decentralized motion with lots of of protests happening across the globe, drawing many hundreds of individuals out of their properties and on to the general public sidewalks to face up for packages that assist poor folks, older folks, veterans, the sick. Out of care and concern for others – a overseas idea to these at the moment in energy – persons are providing what they will to assist. I’ve supplied to schlep provides, and helped somebody discover a bullhorn. The environmentally centered Seattle group I’m part of, Troublemakers, hosts a map the place different folks and teams can submit the places of forthcoming demonstrations. Troublemakers has about $3,500 in its financial institution accounts. All of it is a bare-bones, low-budget, people-powered motion – which is strictly why Musk is afraid of it, and casting about to discover a villain.
There are at the moment 91 Tesla Takedown protests deliberate internationally this coming weekend, and there might be extra the weekend after that. If there isn’t one on the Tesla showroom nearest you, you can begin one simply by displaying up with some buddies or household, perhaps making some cardboard indicators. This train of our elementary first modification proper to peaceably assemble is giving an efficient outlet to the outrage this administration has prompted right here and across the globe, and we’re making a distinction. Tesla inventory has fallen precipitously, shedding 1 / 4 of its worth within the months because the protests started. On Wednesday, JP Morgan analysts instructed Quartz: “We wrestle to think about something analogous within the historical past of the automotive business, wherein a model has misplaced a lot worth so shortly.” Donald Trump even received on X this week to defensively declare that he’ll be shopping for a Tesla to assist his good buddy Musk. Increasingly more persons are unloading the corporate’s inventory and promoting their automobiles. The motion is rising and the administration is taking discover. When sufficient of us come collectively to do what we are able to, that is what efficient opposition might be.
Musk’s false accusations towards me gained’t cease this motion, as a result of he’s inflicting actual hurt on the American public and other people around the globe. In actual fact, Musk and Trump are those committing crimes. Simply this week they’ve introduced their intentions to slash social safety, Medicare, unemployment insurance coverage and meals stamps. They’re gutting public establishments, stripping environmental protections, destabilizing the financial system and folks’s lives. Musk is overtly and gleefully firing federal employees en masse and dismantling packages that serve thousands and thousands at house and throughout the globe. They’ve ignored a number of judicial orders, and refused to restart funds that they have been ordered to. The unofficial company Musk leads, the “division of presidency effectivity”, is digging into methods and pushing out public servants, when its personal workers hasn’t obtained a lot as a background test. Musk’s conflicts of curiosity are piling up with none disclosures. The entire packages this administration is destroying are paid for by folks such as you and me by means of our taxes. Tesla – a billion-dollar firm – shelled out zero earnings tax final 12 months. Justice by means of authorities processes might be gradual, if it comes in any respect.
If we are able to’t present our opposition to what the federal government is doing, we live in a dictatorship. If we’re criminalized for calling out the wealthy and highly effective for his or her unlawful actions, that could be a dictatorship. I don’t need to dwell in a dictatorship.
Make no mistake, it’s scary to be personally known as out by the richest man on the planet on the platform he owns. It’s scary to be focused by a seemingly countless variety of his devoted trolls and bots. To be doxxed, to have one’s life pored over and uncovered, to be smeared, attacked, and falsely accused. It’s scarier nonetheless when the FBI director will get tagged into the threads and requested to research. However I’m not backing down – and even when I did, it wouldn’t make a dent on this motion. Tons of if not hundreds of individuals have participated within the ways in which I’ve.
The reality is, the persons are highly effective. I’ve at all times believed that. And now we all know that Elon Musk does too.
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