Tesla could take another hit as the carmaker’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, digs himself deeper into a hole by attacking Mark Kelly, the Democrat senator from Arizona.
Musk has lashed out at Kelly by calling him a “traitor” after a retired astronaut and Navy combat pilot visited Ukraine and called for continued American support in the country’s struggle against Russian aggression.
“You are a traitor,” the tech billionaire said in response to Kelly’s post on a social media platform X, in which the senator shared a picture of himself in Ukraine.
In a post, Kelly said: “Just left Ukraine. What I saw proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people. Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
While Ukraine said it wants peace, US President Donald Trump has been accused of pressuring it to capitulate on the Kremlin’s terms, which is not acceptable to Kyiv and its European allies.
Kelly shot back at Musk’s remark by saying, “Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.”
“Traitor” has been trending on X, as users went to express their support for the senator and criticize Musk, who owns the platform.
Many pointed out that Musk, who obtained a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother and left South Africa before reaching conscription age, had no right to call a decorated Navy combat pilot a traitor.
Pekka Kallioniemi, a creator of Vatnik Soup, an outlet exposing Russian propaganda, said that a South African “oligarch” calling Kelly a traitor was a “K-hole-level delusion,” in reference to Musk’s ketamine habit.
VoteVets, a progressive veteran organization with 1.5 million members, dismissed Musk as a “pampered billionaire who’s never risked a damn thing” and described Ukraine as a “sovereign nation fighting for its survival.”
“Mark Kelly flew combat missions. Musk fires Veterans, kisses Putin’s ring, and sells out democracy for profit,” it said in a post on X.
Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, noted: “For Donald Trump and Elon Musk, if you don’t bend the knee – you’re a traitor.” She described Kelly as a “patriot” who “believes in freedom and democracy – including for Ukraine.”
This is not the first time Musk sparred with Kelly. Last month, Kelly and his brother, also retired astronaut Scott Kelly, called him out over saying Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen was an “idiot.”
Tesla pays the price
Musk’s latest outburst was followed by renewed calls to boycott Tesla and other companies owned or associated with the billionaire. Actor Billy Baldwin was one of those calling to “take [expletive] Tesla to the [expletive] woodshed.”
"Seriously… we must teach this despicable Nazi oligarch a lesson," Baldwin said in a post featuring a Tesla sign altered to depict Musk making a Nazi salute.
Tesla’s shares dropped 15% on Monday (March 10th), the biggest one-day drop in five years, while its market capitalization has dropped 45% since hitting a record $1.5 trillion on December 17th.
Following the Tesla sell-off, Trump blamed the “radical left lunatics” for attempting to “illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the world’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby.”
Tesla showrooms across the United States have been targeted by protesters, and vehicles vandalized on the street. Trump said he would buy a Tesla in a show of support.
While several factors are driving Tesla’s stock decline, including intensifying competition and market volatility, political associations with Trump play a significant part. This is particularly true in Europe, where Musk vocally backed far-right political movements that he sees aligning with his own worldviews.
Just this weekend, Musk called Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski a "small man" after Sikorski reminded him that Poland was paying for Ukraine’s Starlink subscription after Musk again suggested that he might cut off the service.
The billionaire also claimed without evidence that Ukraine was behind yesterday’s cyberattack against X.
Tesla sales in the EU and the UK fell by half in January. The sales have been falling in California as well, the company’s biggest market in the United States.
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