A string of attacks against Tesla cars and facilities across the country — from Seattle to South Carolina — has gotten the attention of President Trump and his Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has called them “nothing short of domestic terrorism.”
Bondi announced Thursday afternoon that the Department of Justice has charged three defendants with crimes carrying minimum penalties of 5 years and maximum of 20 years. All three had used Molotov cocktails to set fire to Tesla cars and charging stations.
“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.
RELATED STORY | Las Vegas police investigating multiple fires at Tesla collision center
This comes as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken on a prominent and controversial role within the Trump administration leading the Department of Government Efficiency, the operation tasked with slashing the size of the federal government.
A destructive scene unfolded in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning at a Tesla collision center in the southwest part of the city. Molotov cocktails were thrown at cars, a round of shots fired into vehicles, and the word “Resist” spray-painted in bright red on the side of the building. Musk took to his social media platform X, calling the violence “insane and deeply wrong.”
During a later press conference, law enforcement called it a targeted attack, and now the FBI joint terrorism task force is leading that investigation.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT | Investigators: Soldier used AI to plan Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion
Scripps News spoke with former FBI special agent Pat McMonigle, who said that the FBI is involved because of the “higher level criminal activity” in the Las Vegas incident, like shooting the vehicles and Molotov cocktails being thrown at them, which are federal crimes.
But McMonigle thinks it may be a bit of a stretch to call the crimes domestic terrorism.
“There's a lot of debate about what the actual definition of terrorism is, or domestic terrorism. Terrorism really has two different targets or victims. The first is that the target and then the secondary is the victim that they're trying to influence or move in some way. So it could be seen as domestic terrorism that way,” McMonigle said, adding that the incidents definitely qualify as political violence, however.
Dr. Robert A. Pape, a University of Chicago professor who studies political violence, agrees with that characterization.
“Absolutely,” he told Scripps News in a phone interview. “There's no doubt that the attacks on Tesla stations, the Tesla dealerships are acts of political violence. Political violence involves the use of economic damage or harm to people in order to achieve a political purpose. Here, the purpose is quite clear: it is to deter Elon Musk from dismantling the government or acting in other ways to the furtherance of the Trump agenda. And the attacks are meant to cause damage.”
RELATED STORY | Trump touts Tesla in front of the White House as automaker's stock struggles
Though politicians may characterize a crime as domestic terrorism, there is no federal domestic terrorism statute. Pape says that’s mostly because it’s been difficult to get Republican and Democratic members of congress to agree on the definition of domestic terrorism and get that written into law. He offered the example that it would take Democrats agreeing that the George Floyd protests were domestic terrorism; and on the flip side, for Republicans to agree that January 6 was domestic terrorism.
“Political violence is fundamentally political," said Pape. "It's fundamentally about the politics. And that is what changes everything and that's what is so difficult about it.”
Both McMonigle and Pape believe that the FBI will have plenty of evidence and video footage to sift through, especially because Tesla cars themselves are equipped with cameras and sensors. McMonigle said that the Molotov cocktails used in the Las Vegas incident may also have fingerprints and ballistic evidence from gunshots could help investigators.
The Tesla attacks, meanwhile, fit into a broader pattern of political violence in the United States, something that Pape refers to as an “era of violent populism.” He offers several well-known examples from the past few years: the shooting of the United Healthcare CEO; the January 6 attack on the Capitol; the George Floyd protests; these Tesla attacks; and even in the last few days, people rushing the stage at political townhalls across the country.
RELATED STORY | Scripps News Investigates: A surge of political violence in America
“It is a national phenomenon, and this is why it's not going away,” Pape said. He pointed to his research at the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats that shows tens of millions of Americans support political violence, on the right and on the left.
Pape told Scripps News the best way to combat political violence is to have a national conversation about it, like the country experienced during the fall in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. His research found that support for political violence actually shrunk by 50% in November 2024 compared to June 2024.
“There’s not a lot of explanation for that other than the national conversation,” said Pape. “Seventy five percent of the country abhors political violence. They hate it, so the national conversation activates that 75%. And then they start to push back and they do it in tiny ways, like a thousand points of light.”
