Trump Says People Vandalizing Tesla Dealerships Could Be Labeled Domestic Terrorists

There have been multiple attacks on Tesla dealerships and charging stations in recent weeks.

President Donald Trump gets out of a Tesla Model S on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on March 11, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

President Donald Trump condemned violence against Tesla dealerships and said he would consider labeling perpetrators as domestic terrorists on March 11, following multiple acts of vandalism and demonstrations at the electric vehicle company’s showrooms throughout the United States.

Trump made the comments to reporters outside the White House, where he was joined by Tesla’s owner Elon Musk after selecting a new electric vehicle for his staff to use.

“I will do that, I’ll do it. I’m going to stop them,” Trump said when asked if he would consider labeling the individuals carrying out the violence as domestic terrorists.

The Republican leader told reporters his administration is already aware of who some of the people are behind the attacks, adding that law enforcement will soon apprehend them.

“Those people are going to go through a big problem when we catch them. We’ve got a lot of cameras up, we already know who some of them are. We’re going to catch them. And they’re bad guys. They’re the same guys that screw around with our schools and universities, the same garbage,” Trump added.

Trump described Tesla as “a great American company” that “supplies so many people in jobs that others are unable to do.”

Trump’s comments come as police are investigating a series of attacks on Tesla showrooms and charging stations across the country amid backlash over Musk’s role in mass cuts to the federal workforce and the cancellation of contracts that fund humanitarian programs around the world.

The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has been tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in federal operations, is led, in part, by special adviser Musk.

On Feb. 28, a man who identifies as a woman was charged by prosecutors in connection with a string of vandalism against a Colorado Tesla dealership, including Molotov cocktails being thrown at vehicles and the words “Nazi cars” sprayed on the EV makers building.

In a separate incident on March 3, seven charging stations were set on fire at a mall outside of Boston, with the Littleton Police Department describing it as “suspicious in nature.”

Police in Oregon also said on March 6 that they are working with the FBI to investigate after a Tesla dealership was damaged by gunfire overnight, though no one was injured. In another incident on March 7, a man burned three Tesla chargers in the parking lot of a mall in South Carolina, while accidentally setting himself on fire in the process.

Musk, the world’s richest person, responded to the rising violence in a March 4 post on the social media platform X, stating, “Damaging the property of others, aka vandalism, is not free speech!”

A group claiming to be an organizer of the “Tesla Takedown” protests said in a statement on the social media platform Bluesky that it was peaceful and opposed violence.

“Peaceful protest on public property is not domestic terrorism. They are trying to intimidate us. We will not let them succeed,” the group said while calling for people to join the protests.

Reuters contributed to this report.