Why I’m Investigating the Anti-Musk Movement

The Tesla Takedown campaign looks like grassroots protest. But it's something else entirely.

In my latest investigation at Pirate Wires, “Why is the Tesla Takedown Movement Doing Pro-War Ukraine Activism?”, I dive into what is one of the most effective propaganda operation in recent years. Below is an account of how that investigation took place.

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Over the past few months, a movement calling itself Tesla Takedown has gone global. You’ve seen the images on the news and social media — protesters holding signs, chanting about fascism, calling for others to join the effort to drive the Tesla stock down.

The logic the protest organizers employ is simple: Musk is steering the US towards fascism. Most of his wealth is in Tesla. Therefore, if you want to stop Musk, stop Tesla.

That’s all well and fine — except the details tell a very different story.

I’ve spent dozens of hours investigating the Tesla Takedown movement. I can tell you one thing about it definitively: none of it is what it seems.

The anti-Musk effort was launched after the inauguration, when Musk made his famous (or infamous) “arm gesture.” The very next day — the very next morning — dozens of Reddit communities began banning links from X. Most of the earliest ones were groups dedicated to top-tier UK football (“soccer” for US readers) teams.

Many of the posts proposing X link bans became the top posts of all time in those groups. In one case, the proposal to ban X links got more upvotes than a post celebrating the team’s first championship win in 30 years. Sound likely to you? Me neither.

As I continued to dive into Tesla Takedown, I kept feeling as if there were a pattern lurking. I’d see it without fully noticing it. I wasn’t totally sure what it was, but I knew something was there: it was that cliché about feeling as if you’re being followed. And then, suddenly, it clicked.

Reporting the Reddit X ban link piece, I painstakingly assembled a timeline of the earliest posts proposing a given subreddit ban links from the Musk-owned site. Mashable had reported that r/hockey was the first to do so. (That wasn’t even close to accurate.)

One of the first communities to propose banning X was a subreddit dedicated to the Tottenham football club. That, again, was strange. I personally know many Tottenham fans, since it’s considered the “Jewish” club in the UK. Precisely 0 of them care about X links.

In the process, I came across a post on X by an account for the Armed Forces Spurs Official Supporters Club — that’s a group dedicated to Tottenham fans who serve, or have served, in the UK military. The post read:

As long as Mr. Musk continues to influence policies that undermine military aid, real-time defence [sic], and support for Ukraine’s people and Armed Forces, we cannot, in good conscience, continue using this platform he owns, uses to do harm and significantly profits from. Out. 🇬🇧 🇺🇦

Excuse me, what?

Why on earth would this group post — stridently, at that — about Musk’s alleged decision to “undermine military aid”? And that’s when the lurking pattern stepped out of the shadow.

Over those weeks of diving deep into social media accounts run by the Tesla Takedown movement (okay, I confess: it was mostly Bluesky), I had seen the same color again and again. Blue and yellow. Yellow and blue. It wasn’t just the colors. It was the flag. It was the slogans. It was the battle cry, Slava Ukraini! It was Zelensky being heroized in banners and signs. It was all of it.

Let me take a beat here to clarify: I support Ukraine in this war. I believe the country is fighting a just war. It was attacked, brutally. Its leaders, and its people, have displayed immense bravery and resilience. For me, this investigation was’t about tearing down Ukraine. It’s about reporting what is really going on in our information ecosystem.

But what I found in the Tesla Takedown movement could not be ignored. In dozens of social media posts, at protests, in YouTube videos: it was Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.

• In Dedham, Massachusetts, protesters held “Stand With Ukraine” signs.

• In rural Colorado, a protester held a “We support Ukraine” poster.

• In Vallejo, California a Ukraine sign was among the most prominent.

• In White Plains, New York, one protester was draped in a Ukraine flag and another held a sign with the country’s military emblem on it.

• In Columbus, Ohio, where protesters held Ukraine flags and “Support Ukraine” signs

• At a separate protest in Columbus, protesters held pro-Ukraine signs.

• In Lawrence, New Jersey, Ukraine signs were displayed.

There was pro-Ukraine imagery prominently displayed at Tesla Takedown protests in: Spokane, Washington; Sarasota, Florida; Rochester, New York; Smithtown, Long Island; Kansas City, Missouri; Madison, Wisconsin; Northbrook, Illinois; Salt Lake City, Utah; Troy, Michigan; Arlington, Virginia; Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

In the UK, Tesla Takedown organizers timed protests so they would be coordinated with pro-Ukraine demonstrations. Alex Winter, one of the US organizers, posted ceaselessly about Ukraine — before abruptly deleting all his Bluesky posts in April.

The deeper I went, the more I saw the outlines of something else: a coordinated campaign leveraging cultural activism and grassroots optics to attack a geopolitical opponent of the war. A war many Americans have tuned out—but one European governments still see as existential.

Which might help explain the intensity.

For me, things fell into place when I realized that the Reddit X ban link and the Ukraine effort were not distinct but continuous. The operation was not limited and objectives-bound, but broad and strategic. It was implemented at a scale in direct proportion to the threat that Trump presented to those who designed it.

This made it multi-faceted, but it also made it urgent. And that made it vulnerable to exposure. In a separate Pirate Wires piece, “Tesla Takedown Tied to Short Sellers”, I traced how a network of activist Wikipedia editors (with ties to short-sellers betting against Tesla stock) helped seed the movement’s online narrative. I could do that because the campaign was run on an open platform, Wikipedia. But also because the people behind it boasted about what they were doing.

What we’re seeing isn’t just protest. It’s not even just information warfare. It’s the convergence of elite anxiety, European soft power, financial interests, activist media, and digital platforms into one big narrative weapon: Musk as threat vector, Tesla as pressure point, Reddit and Wikipedia — and the media more generally — as the battlefield.

Is this a conspiracy? Yes, and no. Some aspects of its were probably more ad hoc than others. Some were absolutely planned. But this is how modern media warfare is waged: it’s hybrid, not only in terms of its kinetic vs psychological elements, but even within the propaganda battlefield.

The best propagandists are hijack artists. They don’t create from scratch, they co-opt energy, assets, movements, accounts, and culture. If you want to know where the war’s going next, follow these flags.

— AR

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More reporting on this at Pirate Wires. If you’re reading this on Substack, make sure you’re also following the main story there. And please do subscribe to The Burning Telegraph.

📎 Why is the Tesla Takedown Movement Doing Pro-War Ukraine Activism?

📎 Tesla Takedown Tied to Short Sellers

📎 Reddit X Link Ban Coordinated Astroturfing

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