The Tesla Ethicist: Should I Sell My Tesla EV To Protest Musk’s Government Interference? – CleanTechnica

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Last Updated on: 6th March 2025, 09:09 am

In this edition of the Tesla Ethicist, we weigh in on the degree to which our consumer spending reflects our moral compasses. A Tesla owner wonders if that company’s anti-democratic values are an ample reason for selling their proven, premium electric vehicle.

Dear Tesla Ethicist,

I see a few celebrities have gotten rid of their Teslas, divesting of a relationship with white supremacist Musk. How do other Tesla owners follow suit without taking a bath financially? Does selling a Tesla make a meaningful impact on reducing new car sales and, thus, hurt the bottom line of a company whose morals are contrary to our own?

Answer:

Elon Musk is the CEO of several companies, such as Starlink, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and SpaceX. He has brought internet access to remote regions, hope to spinal cord–injured persons, congestion relief in high traffic areas, and assistance to NASA with the International Space Station.

He’s also the owner of X, which works “to protect the public’s right to free speech.” That social media site is where a sense of Musk-as-visionary falls apart. Musk has used his platform to reintroduce hate speech to mainstream conversations. For example, Musk drew upon infamous Nazis like Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring for a January 23 comment on X. He has backed Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany — they are extreme right, Russia supporters, and anti-Muslim. The Orwellian way in which X has recreated legitimacy and given right-wing extremists a forum is horrific.

Musk labeled British Prime Minister Strarmer an “evil tyrant” who runs a “police state.” He even said of the US important Tesla market to our north, “Canada is not a real country.”

And so there’s Tesla. In 2022 many people were delighted how Tesla led the way to all-electric transportation with such dominance. The third generation of the Tesla Supercharger network made all-electric travel seem rather elegant. The Tesla Model Y is still beloved by its owners — and prior to Trump 2.0 was the best selling car in Europe.

But Tesla CEO Musk’s attempts at dismantling US federal programs and identifying with global authoritarians have some owners considering whether they should sell their Tesla vehicles. The act of selling would be a protest against Musk’s values and politics, which are antithetical to their own. Sometimes this is referred to as “ethical consumerism.” Is it actually possible to sustainably consume? Meaning, can we consume in a way that supports the three pillars of development — economic, environmental, and social — while ensuring that future generations will be able to answer their needs?

“There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with,” Sheryl Crow wrote on her Instagram. “So long Tesla.” After she sold her Model Y, Crow donated the money to National Public Radio (NPR), which she wrote “is under threat by President Musk, in hopes that the truth will continue to find its way to those willing to know the truth.”

Of course, selling a Tesla means absorbing depreciation, a decision that everyday consumers may not be able to afford, unlike a wealthy celebrity like Crow. To what degree are Tesla owners willing — and, possibly more importantly, able — to sacrifice personal financial stability for a greater good? Do everyday citizens have the same responsibility to sell a $60,000 or so vehicle as does a celebrity with much greater financial latitude?

It is instructive to look at other examples in our memories in which morals and politics collided as part of this Tesla Ethicist post.

In the late 1970s, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter shook up Washington, DC with a new approach to leadership that infused traditional, moral ideologies into federal decision-making. A Washington outsider, the Carter team brought reforms based on honest integrity, social restructuring, and moral underpinning that challenged the established broken political system of the Nixon/Ford years. But honesty had its limits, and Carter’s perceived inaction during the Iran hostage crisis cost him the election. (His laser focus on the issue kept him from the campaign trail.) The hostages were formally released into US custody just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn into office; Reagan took credit.

How does political ethics come into personal life? When I was a teen and wanted to drive with friends to Seabrook, New Hampshire, to protest the construction of a nuclear power plant, my mother asked me a salient question. Was I willing to get arrested and be legally required to mention that arrest on every future job application? Her advice resonated with me again and again later in life. It’s unlikely I would’ve been hired as a public school teacher in a conservative district with that blemish on my permanent record. Yet I’ve continued to speak out against the perils of nuclear power, finding alternate routes for my voice to be heard.

Two nights ago, President Trump spoke to a joint session of Congress. Nobel Award–winning economist Paul Krugman declared, “It was the smallest, lowest speech in modern presidential history.” After several capitulations over the past few weeks, Trump admitted that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is “headed up by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight.” The Trump administration had argued that Musk was not the head of DOGE in order to defend the group’s work from several lawsuits.

Despite the hypocrisy, legislators and companies have kowtowed to King Trump and King Musk in order to stay relevant.

“I used to be adored by the left,” Musk said in an interview with Tucker Carlson on February 18. The evidence of that decline is in Tesla’s stock price, which dropped by almost 24% in the past month, when the stock price was $397.15. Also, compared to its peak on December 17 ($479.86), the stock price is down even much more (by 37%). Many small shareholders like me are selling their Tesla stock, which we had hoped to leave as a legacy to our heirs.

What about stock portfolios? Are today’s small investors ready to lose profits in order to take a stand against corporate immorality?

Back to responsible car ownership — it extends beyond personal preferences for aesthetics or on-the-road power. It involves making choices that reflect concern for others and the planet — and that includes driving an environmentally friendly vehicle, perhaps even if a company’s CEO is a racist and plunderer. Any conversation about selling a personal Tesla vehicle has to include a discussion about how transportation has become the highest emitting sector of the US economy, accounting for about 29% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Light-duty vehicles, including cars and small trucks, account for about 57% of transportation emissions. Teslas have zero emissions.

What of consumers who drive internal combustion engines? Should they feel compelled to protest Big Oil’s well-documented destruction of the planet? Did you know Henry Ford was an anti-Semitic? Has there been a century-long outcry against buying an F-150? What about their pickup EV — the F-150 Lightning? Have those vehicle been boycotted to support Jewish rights?

To show their social awareness, many Tesla owners have purchased a bumper sticker like the one at the top of the page. The iconography is intended to distance their love of their EV with the company’s owner. It is also a way to make more transparent Tesla’s working conditions, environmental production impact, and company transparency.

In essence, how much are we obligated to walk our moral talk? If the answer is as fully as possible, then shouldn’t we all be replacing our furnaces with heat pumps and our juicy burgers with plant-based proteins? Should we forego air travel to exotic locations and acquiesce to stay-cations close to home that are less carbon producing?

The ethical consumerism debate should be about trying to improve systems of production and consumption for the good of people and the planet, but really it has turned into a fight about moral virtuosity, muses Inès Le Cannellier on Medium. Too often, she continues, the individual is targeted for ethical consumerism, which mutes the role and ultimate responsibility of large corporations.

Thinking again about Musk, doesn’t the real ethical duty lie with Tesla’s board of directors to reject Musk as CEO, based on his infamous behaviors? It’s time for publicly run Tesla to adhere to its purported values, even if it means parting with the guy whose passion brought transportation electrification to the mainstream.

Want to check out previous editions of the Tesla Ethicist? Click here and here.