Trump, Musk And The Politics Of Being A Tesla Owner In Wyoming

As the face of Tesla, Elon Musk’s embrace of the MAGA movement created a world of cognitive dissonance and buyer’s remorse for many of the electric car maker’s left-leaning customer base, for whom Musk became the political equivalent of Anakin Skywalker.

People outraged by his role in the Trump Administration — which included firing federal employees and paring down government programs — responded by vandalizing Tesla products and properties, and even tormenting Tesla drivers on the road with crude hand gestures and language.

But in dramatic fashion the Trump-Musk alliance has hit the skids. So, are Tesla owners thinking any differently about their rides now, and are they safer from that angry and emotional vandalism that came with his alliance with Trump?

Drivers say they’re doing their best to ignore the volatile politics of Tesla ownership altogether while conceding it’s easier said than done. Many still feel they’re displaying a target each time they push start.

For now, they're holding their breath to see how the Trump-Musk breakup may impact them, but it’s clear that the last few months have been harder for some Tesla owners than others.

Blasé Attitudes

TJ Doan is a Cheyenne resident, IT consultant and unwavering Tesla devotee. He enjoyed driving his Model 3 so much he decided to start working part-time as a rideshare driver. 

Right about the time Musk made headlines wielding a chainsaw on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Doan upgraded to the Cybertruck. He’s been driving it through politically tempestuous roadways ever since. 

He began noticing middle fingers in his rearview mirrors, and on occasion he catches insults from open passenger windows beside him while stopped at streetlights. Whether the political fallout between Musk and Trump brings an end to these reactions, Doan says it's too early to guess.

He nonetheless asserts that his own frame of mind hasn’t changed in the least, which has been impressively blasé from the start.

“People want to think I care. Like, hey, I’m flipping you off because I hate Tesla or I hate Elon,” Doan said. “But I care not. I just really don't.

“I don't care about what Elon does. Whatever he does, he does. I don’t care about the politics. I don’t care about any of that crap. He’s not why I bought the truck. I bought it because it’s the best and safest vehicle I’ve had, and they're fun to drive.”

Last week, it was Trump and Musk flipping one another figurative birds on their respective social media platforms. 

In a highly publicized back-and-forth, Trump attacked Musk on his Truth Social platform, suggesting the CEO was a beggar for electric vehicle subsidies.

Musk responded on his social media site X with insinuations that the president was implicated in the sex-trafficking scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, a multimillionaire who hanged himself in 2019 in a federal jail in New York where he was awaiting trial. (Musk has since apologized and walked back those comments.) 

Driving Under The Radar

Alison Streeter of Atlanta, Georgia, stopped in Natrona County on Thursday to plug in her Model 3 at a Tesla Supercharger station in Evansville. It’s among the dozens of stops she’ll make with her companion, Jasper, a miniature schnauzer, on their road trip across the country.

Different from Doan, Streeter is a self-described “bleeding heart liberal” who now holds deep ambivalence about the car she bought at the end of last year. 

“I feel a little bit like a hypocrite because I'm not a fan of Elon or Trump. I don’t like what they're doing. But I wanted an electric car, and this was the best one for me,” she said, opening the hatchback to reveal a Tesla-brand blowup mattress that’s helped shave down her trip expenses.

Streeter said she contemplated different ways to offset her feelings of hypocrisy, including anti-Musk bumper stickers. Although she worried that would only expose her to a separate line of attack.

“I was going to get a sticker that said something like, ‘I like the car, not Elon,’ but I decided not to because I didn’t want to open myself up to more attacks,” she said. “I decided I’m just going to try to fly under the radar and see where things go from here.”

Two charging stalls down, a Denver resident returning home with his wife on a road trip from Washington state expressed his ambivalence differently. 

He agreed to speak with Cowboy State Daily on the condition of anonymity because he was fearful he “would start getting pinged” by detractors regardless of what political position he took. He offered an example of the ways in which the political climate has struck fear in the hearts of Tesla drivers.

“I like the car, it exceeds our expectations, but I hate all the political stuff. Musk is outlandish. He seems to love his power too much,” the man said, dressed as though he stepped out from the pages of an REI catalog, wearing a Patagonia hat, Arc'teryx shoes and a Garmin watch. 

He explained that the protests by the Takedown Tesla movement have made him feel personally targeted, and he resents what he sees as misplaced frustration.

“It’s stupid. They shouldn’t be vandalizing and protesting Tesla and Tesla owners,” he said. “They need to go to their congresspeople and protest them. They’re the ones they should be upset at because they're allowing all these things to happen. I’m going to stick it out and maybe it’ll quiet down, but I don’t think it's fair to us. 

“They’re punishing the wrong people. I’m just an innocent car owner, and now the value of my car has fallen by thousands,” he added, before unplugging to get back on the road to Denver, where organizers with Takedown Tesla had scheduled protests this weekend. 

‘He Probably Should Have Stayed Out Of Government’

Keren Meister-Emerich is Tesla's unofficial brand ambassador in Cheyenne whose tech-savvy reputation and voice of influence has earned her the nickname Cyber Grandma.

Emerich has been criticized on roadways while driving her Cybertruck, but she’s cultivated an attitude of detachment toward the negativity. She finds this easier to do with the balance of positive comments she receives.

“I get a few thumbs down and a few middle fingers and ugly truck comments,” she said. “But I probably get almost as many good comments. You get both. The other day, one of the neighbor kids said, ‘Can I drive with you in your truck sometime?’”

She finds the Trump-Musk drama as off-putting as the public response toward Tesla and does her best to keep it all out of mind.

These guys being best friends and then enemies, them politically having their little fist fights and complaints about each other and the on-again, off-again romance, that's their problem, not mine.

"It has nothing to do with the car,” she said, adding that she’s also unimpressed by the wider public reactions.  

“When I see on TV the protests and vandalism, I think that's crazy. I am totally opposed to that. I think the way they take it down if that’s what they want to do is decrease the value of the stock, don't buy the stock if that's their goal,” she said.

Meister-Emerich says that generally she feels safe in her Cybertruck but has also noticed a growing appreciation and use of “sentry mode,” in which the car’s cameras automatically begin recording after sensors pick up body movement around its perimeter.

“It’s ridiculous to be fighting like this and worrying about somebody vandalizing your vehicle because they don't like the company,” she said, adding that she wishes Musk would focus his energy to what she sees as his natural talents. 

“Musk is so polarizing that people say, ‘Well, anything he touches must be bad,’” she said. “He probably should have stayed out of government anyway and just stuck with making vehicles and having creative ideas on how to improve them.”

Zakary Sonntag can be reached at zakary@cowboystatedaily.com.