'0 to 1939 in 3 seconds': why the anti -flogging musk satire is flourishing in Britain

The naughty posters began to appear throughout London in the last two months.

On the side of a bus stop from Eastern London, one of them shows Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, emerging from the roof of a tesla with his hand pointing up in greeting with straight weapons. “It goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,” says the announcement. “Tesla. Swasticar”.

Another simulated announcement shows Mr. Musk and President Trump in front of a red tesla with the words: “Now with white assisted direction.” In northern London, an advertising fence of false films is resolved: “The Fast and the Führer”, with a photo of Mr. Musk greeting next to a Tesla with a Duxt plaque, a reference to the federal agency that opens the budget he currently leads on behalf of Mr. Trump.

“Parent Guide,” warns the advertising fence, presented by a group that calls itself to overthrow musk. “The Tesla CEO is an extreme right activist. Do not give your money.”

Throughout the British capital and in several European cities, the characteristic business of Mr. Musk has become the objective of the same type of political anger that has fed the vandalism of Tesla cars in the United States and sometimes violent protests in their dealers.

There have been some <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/02/italian-police-increase-security-at-tesla-dealerships-after-17-cars-destroyed-in-rome-fire” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>instances of rebel protests and vandalism in Europe. But a large part of the anti-mudgo feeling has taken the form of political satire, of the type that has flourished in Britain from at least the 18th century.

Just on the outskirts of Berlin, a group called Political Beauty Center used high -power lights to project the word “Heil” next to a Tesla factory to read “Heil Tesla”, along with an image of Mr. Musk that greets during a speech in Washington. In Italy, street art represents Elon Musk taking away a mask to show Adolf Hitler's face below. The words “Elon Mask” appear on the image.

“There has never been a goal exactly like this,” said John Gorenfeld, a software engineer who helped start a London -based group called “Takedown Tesla.” The group has organized protests from several dozen people during the last weeks. They sing posters along the highways that say “horn if you hate Elon”. And they have printed stickers for bumper for Tesla owners with phrases such as “do not make the same mistake” and “model before 2020”.

“No one who is so rich and powerful has behaved so scandalously,” Gorenfeld said. “There is something Campy and ridicule about Musk's toxicity brand. And it opens a real space to ridicule.”

In Europe, Mr. Musk is not just a distant example of American wealth and power. During the last year, it has become a frequent political enthrieve, often intervenes in the name of the causes of extreme right in x, its social networks platform, where it has 218 million followers.

In Great Britain, Mr. Musk is known for sharing erroneous information about a child violation scandal and asking that Prime Minister Keir Starmer be imprisoned. He has asked the release of Tommy Robinson, an extreme right -wing anti -immigrant agitator who is in prison for contempt of the court. And criticized the seven -year sentence of a neo -Nazi who prompted and participated in anti -immigrant disturbances last summer.

The small anti-mudgo groups that have appeared in Europe have the same basic objective: the price and sales of Tank Tesla's shares as a way to send a message to Mr. Musk and other super rich people who are thinking of promoting the extreme right policy worldwide. Some groups refused to be interviewed about their actions, citing concern to become an objective of the wrath of Mr. Musk on social networks. But others were more open about their goals.

“The objective of this is to show Musk and other billionaires that are vulnerable and cannot act with impunity,” said Ben Stewart, founder of a British satirical activist group called donkey led by donkeys, who worked with the political beauty center to project the image of Mr. Musk in the Berlin factory. “We have to take advantage of global public opinion to reject.”

The organizers think it is working. The price of Tesla's shares has almost been reduced by half since its maximum in December, almost at the same time that Mr. Musk began its high profile role that supervises the dismissal of government workers and cuts the budgets of federal agencies. This week, Tesla reported a 13 percent drop in sales compared to a year ago.

“What they try to do is exert massive pressure on me, and Tesla, I suppose, so they know, I don't know, stop doing this,” Mr. Musk He said last week in Wisconsin where I was campaigning for a candidate of the Supreme Court of the State.

And yet, he added with a shoulder shrink: “In the long term, I think that Tesla's actions will work well, so it may be a purchase opportunity.”

The protesters who talked about their goals said they wanted to challenge the influence of Mr. Musk without resorting to vandalism that <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1902778638824591396″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>The billionaire has called in the United States as “coordinated violence against a peaceful company.”

Theodora Sutcliffe, a London resident who helped organize Tesla's demolition, said that none of the people he works participates in violence. Instead, they have tried to find other ways to capture public attention.

In one of his protests, a 20 -foot balloon wavy man who vaguely looked like Mr. Musk greeted the air. On other occasions, Mrs. Sutcliffe and her companions have left flyers on the windshields of Tesla cars.

“Once upon a time, Teslas was great,” says a steering wheel. “Now, unfortunately, that is not the case. Driving a Tesla and using Tesla Chargers means that you are supporting Elon Musk, a man who promotes climatic denials and addicted to fossil fuel.”

“If you want to become viral in the United Kingdom, I think you have to be intelligent,” Sutcliffe said. “That is our sense of humor normally.”

The anti-mudgo efforts in Berlin were led by Philipp Ruch, artistic director of the Political Beauty Center, a German activist group. In an interview, he said that much of the anger towards Mr. Musk in Germany comes from the support of the billionaire to the country's extreme right party, the alternative for Germany.

“The first day the administration enters, he does Hitler's greeting,” Ruch said. “This is something we could not tolerate, politically and artistically.”

Mr. Ruch performs many of his protests to “overwriting” an image with another. In the Tesla dealership, he used lights to overlap his words and images of Mr. Musk to create a new artistic creation. (He said the police are now investigating their efforts, which were visible for about an hour). The images of the building spread widely on social networks.

Other efforts have also become viral.

There are simulated air drills called “musk-b-gone” that promise to cover “the stench of fascism.” And cardboard cuts from Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump, thanking Tesla's owners for their support when they recharge their cars in the company's supercharging lots.

“There are some people who come to Musk as if it were a kind of passive agent of Trump and really, this is just another way to get to Trump,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “There are other people who perceive Musk as someone who is a unique type of threat that we have not really seen before in terms of their economic control and information control.”