Campaign group Everyone Hates Elon organised protest with car bound for scrapheap ‘to create debate about wealth inequality’

Protective helmets were donned and sledgehammers wielded as Elon Musk critics vented their frustration at the Tesla boss and billionaire by smashing up a disused Tesla bound for the scrapheap.

The public art project was organised by the social media campaign group Everyone Hates Elon. A 2014 Tesla Model S was provided by an anonymous donor “to create a debate about wealth inequality”, a spokesperson for the group said.

The participants gathered at Hardess Studios in south London on Thursday to take it in turns to swing at the car with sledgehammers and baseball bats. The destroyed electric vehicle, which retails for about £14,000, will be auctioned in the next few weeks, with all proceeds going to food bank charities.

“We’re giving Londoners a chance to stand up to far-right hatred and billionaires and express how they feel about the current state of the world,” said the group. “Therapy is expensive, but this is free.”

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Talia Denisenko, a 32-year-old writer, wore a Ukrainian flag as she took a hammer to the car’s bonnet as Britney Spears’s Hit Me Baby One More Time blared from a speaker. “My family is Ukrainian and Elon Musk wants to keep us occupied,” she said. “Things feel very disempowering at the moment. This is a little bit of therapy.”

Alice Rogers, a 24-year-old University of Cambridge researcher from Illinois, said: “Musk is acting in ways which violate our constitution. I’m very concerned by what I’m seeing – he’s gutting agencies and cutting USAID. This felt really cathartic. I’m not normally a smasher, but that felt really good.”

Everyone Hates Elon, which garnered attention this year for distributing stickers with the slogan “Don’t buy a Swasticar”, said it had made clear that the stunt, called London vs Musk, should not be replicated outside the event.

“This is a private event with a used Tesla that was destined for the scrapyard – it’s a supervised, controlled art piece and there are proper safety measures in place,” said a spokesperson. “We urge people not to damage other Teslas or any other cars.”

The battery of the scrap car had been removed and recycled.

“I’m just aghast at what I see going on in America at the moment,” said Lee Woods, a 45-year-old university lecturer who had travelled two hours from Hampshire for the event. “I think Musk is using his obscene wealth to promote the far right.”

Musk, the world’s richest person, leads the Trump administration’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), which the president tasked with drastically reducing US government jobs and cutting national debt.

Tesla’s shares dropped 13% in the first three months of 2025 – an indication of buyer backlash as a result of Musk’s rightwing politics. Protests calling for a boycott of the electric vehicle company have been taking place on both sides of the Atlantic in recent months, including a global day of action where hundreds of Tesla branches were targeted by protesters from the US group Tesla Takedown.

“My opinion [on Musk] has changed hugely,” said Giles Pearson, 32, who dealt the first blow on Thursday. “Since buying Twitter he’s become seriously rightwing and alienated a lot of people by doing so. I would never normally do something like this … but I’ve always wanted to smash a car.”