These Tesla Attacks Cited by Right Wing Sources Never Happened
By Sarah Komar
What happened: MAGA accounts are spreading two false claims — one using a miscaptioned video and the other an AI-generated image — to advance the claim that unhinged liberals are attacking Elon Musk’s Tesla vehicles.
Context: Yes, Tesla vandalism reports have risen as Musk has championed controversial federal funding cuts and aligned himself with the MAGA movement. CBS News (NewsGuard Trust Score: 90/100) reported that there were at least five reported Tesla vandalism incidents in March in New York City alone. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi warned that the Justice Department considers such acts “domestic terrorism” and will prosecute perpetrators.
A closer look: However, at least some of the conservative outrage over the Tesla backlash is based on two of the most provocative incidents that never happened.
1. Ruse road rage: Conservative accounts are sharing a video of a heated road rage incident, claiming it shows a furious liberal yelling at a Tesla driver before hitting a scooter rider in a crosswalk.
You can watch the video here:
The claim appears to have originated with a March 28 X post by pro-Trump user @Maga4liberty, who posted the clip and said: “Liberal Male Karen runs over little girl in a rage against Tesla! WTF IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE.” The post garnered 4.2 million views and 43,000 likes in three days.
Conservative meme account @ImMeme0 said in a March 28 X post featuring the video: “Retard enraged by a Tesla driving next to him hits a pedestrian. Democrats are out of their f---ing minds!” The post received 734,000 views and 10,000 likes in three days.
Actually: No Teslas were involved in the incident.
Near the end of the video, the man who was yelled at by the supposed “liberal” and who filmed the video that is now being shared on social media, shows the back of his windshield to reveal that the car is a pickup truck with an open cargo bed. Tesla does not manufacture any trucks with open beds, according to its website.
The earliest version of the clip NewsGuard found, a March 27 Instagram post by @diesels.ig, made no mention of Tesla. It was simply captioned, “Maybe just focus on driving, you can’t handle both.”
2. An AI vandal: Some conservatives also shared a photo purporting to show an overweight, blue-haired liberal spray-painting “FASCIST” on a Tesla Cybertruck.
Pro-Trump X user @akafaceUS posted the photo alongside the text, “I don’t care anymore... Throw these people in prison for 10+ years.” The post garnered 120,500 views and 3,800 likes in two days.
The Facebook page for the Albany County Republicans posted the image and stated: “Whatever this person is for, we’re against. Modern Dems.”
Actually: The photo is an AI-generated fake.
Lead Stories (Trust Score: 100/100) found, and NewsGuard confirmed, that the image is 99.9 percent “likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content” according to AI detection tool Hive.
The first account to publish the image, X user @DrClownPhD, states in its bio that the account posts “Trustworthy fake news & memes.”