The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force investigated the incident and released surveillance images of a suspect in the hopes someone would recognize her.
Last month, on March 27, two men approached a Tesla parked on Monroe St. near Patchen Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant around 1 a.m. and etched the word “Nazis” and a swastika on its side, marring a 2-inch-by-2-inch section of the passenger side door.
The Tesla came equipped with a surveillance camera, which caught the vandalism, cops said.
In an unrelated incident a few hours later, in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, a 39-year-old man approached his Tesla parked near the corner of Hawthorne St. and Rogers Ave. and learned someone slapped a sticker on the driver’s side bumper.
The sticker had a swastika and the word “Musk” on it, police said.
On March 6, a masked duo spray-painted a red swastika on a Tesla Cybertruck they found parked near the corner of Rivington and Chrystie Sts. on the Lower East Side, police said.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the other three incidents. No arrests have been made.
Anti-Trump administration protesters have zeroed in on Tesla electric vehicles since Musk began chain-sawing federal government spending and agency staffing as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Critics quickly likened Musk to a Nazi after he was recorded giving what some considered to be a Nazi salute during an event for Trump last November.
However, the vandalism of Teslas with swastikas and “Nazi” scrawls has raised the question of whether these incidents are actually hate crimes or not. Musk has said he definitely feels they are.
Last month, nine people were arrested during a nonviolent “Pull the Plug on Elon Musk” protest at a Tesla dealership in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Similar protests have erupted across the country.
On the more extreme end, some Tesla vehicles and charging stations have been the target of violence and arson attacks. Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, recently branded these incidents “domestic terrorism,” vowing to throw the perpetrators “behind bars.”
Anyone with information regarding the unsolved acts of vandalism is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
