Cybertruck Owner Wants Congress To Make Being Mean To Tesla Owners A Hate Crime

When Tesla announced initial plans for the Cybertruck, founder and noted vanguard truth-teller Elon Musk promised it would have a steel exoskeleton that would be part of the structure of the truck, making it terrible for pedestrians but likely incredibly tough. What we actually got was a regular unibody EV with steel body panels attached to the vehicle with an adhesive. Oh, and as for the “tough” part, you can defeat one with a simple car wash, so that also didn’t happen. So it shouldn’t surprise you that the owners — who need you to know they love their trucks — also aren’t tough or thick-skinned. In fact, one has taken it as far as to publicly announce he wrote his representative demanding they make it a hate crime to be mean to Tesla owners.

If you don’t have a Facebook account, you can also view an archived version here. And yes, we’re talking about a Facebook post, and anyone can troll on social media, but if it’s trolling, the entire Cybertruck Owners Forum is also playing along because they generally agree he’s onto something. It would also be reasonable to assume I’m exaggerating the term “hate crime” since my issues with Musk predate the Model X. But no. Mike Miller, the man who wrote the post, literally wrote “hate crime” because, apparently, choosing to buy a Cybertruck knowing full well who the CEO was is exactly the same thing as being born Black or gay. Will it actually go anywhere? Probably not, but now that Elon is in the White House, never say never.

So why should crimes be punished more harshly if the victim owns a Tesla? Well, you see, he “[finds] it deeply troubling that owning an American-made vehicle has made [him]—and many others—a target for unjustified hostility.” Allegedly, someone else once “deliberately attempted to run [him] off the road,” which if real, would be both scary and a violation of Jalopnik’s “don’t hit things with your car” policy and also illegal. His second complaint, however, illustrates even worse behavior, writing, “In another unsettling encounter, while washing my car in my own driveway, a stranger drove up, hurled insults at me, and then left while running stops [sic] signs.” And after allegedly viewing the security footage provided by the HOA, he claims they’d never been in his neighborhood before, supposedly proving that he was unfairly targeted.

But he doesn’t just want cops to do a better job tracking down the people accused of breaking the law. He wants them punished even more harshly because he is a Tesla owner, and that should make him special. “I urge you to consider legislative action that would increase penalties for these acts, potentially classifying them as hate crimes or enhancing legal consequences for individuals who engage in such behavior,” he wrote. “No one should be harassed, threatened, or harmed based on the car they drive.” That would, of course, be news to Republicans, who for years have given their blessing to anything that “owns the libs,” including harassing hybrid and EV drivers in public, blocking access to chargers and using their illegally modified trucks to roll coal on drivers they don’t like.

We could get bogged down in the hypocrisy, as well as the misrepresentation of what people protesting at Tesla dealerships are upset over, but you have to remember the Republican mantra is, “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” It’s also completely understandable that bragging about giving $100,000 to the man who just illegally fired their friends or family members and is doing his best to ensure this country is ruled exclusively by billionaires while our rights are stripped away. He could also just trade his Cybertruck in for something that the general public doesn’t actively hate, but no. We need extra jail time for a crime if the victim is a Tesla owner.

I’ve reached out to Rep. Garamendi’s office to confirm it had received the letter, but his representative was not available to comment immediately. If we receive a statement, though, we’ll be sure to update this post accordingly.