Tesla vandals will end up ‘behind bars’: U.S. attorney general

'Resist' is shown spray-painted on the doors of a Tesla collision centre in Las Vegas. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday in the latest public show of support for Elon Musk, a top ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, that serious charges are being brought against three people accused of targeting Tesla cars.

“Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars,” Bondi said in a statement.

The three defendants, who were not identified, “will face the full force of the law” for using Molotov cocktails to set fire to Tesla vehicles and charging stations in Oregon, Colorado and South Carolina, the Justice Department said.

In the South Carolina incident, an individual “wrote profane messages against President Trump around Tesla charging stations before lighting the charging stations on fire,” it said.

The Justice Department did not specify the exact charges but said the three defendants could face a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years.

Musk, the South African-born billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, is leading Trump’s ruthless cost-cutting drive at the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Several Tesla dealerships around the country have been vandalized in recent weeks and the company’s stock price has plummeted over the past month.

Trump, in an unprecedented product endorsement by a sitting president, sought to boost Tesla sales earlier this month, briefly turning the White House into a showroom and announcing he was buying one of the electric cars.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed Bondi’s remarks in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, saying the president will ensure the “harshest penalties” for those who engage in “this vicious violence” against Tesla.

Leavitt was also asked by reporters about an unusual appeal to buy Tesla stock during a television appearance by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik.

“I think the commerce secretary was reiterating that the president supports an American made company like Tesla,” she said.

Tesla, Leavitt added, “was beloved by the American people, particularly Democrats, until Elon Musk decided to vote for Donald Trump.”

Musk, in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday, said Tesla was being targeted because DOGE was taking away money that people were “receiving fraudulently.”

“They get very upset and they basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud,” he said. “And they want to hurt Tesla because we’re stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government.”