Ryan Bautista | News Editor
17 April 2025
What happens when a billionaire businessman becomes a government employee and starts implementing radical changes to the government that people may not like? Well, the obvious answer is for these people to dissociate themselves from all of his products. Now, what happens when those people actually like his products and don’t want to get rid of them?… Have you cracked the riddle? Let me rephrase it with current events: People who do not agree with Elon Musk have started covering up the Tesla logos on their electric cars in protest of his recent government actions.
The question is, is it worth it?
As a bit of background, the main reason why people buy Tesla or electric cars in the first place is because of their reduced carbon emissions and lesser environmental impact. While this is commonly seen as a more liberal issue, Musk’s support of President Trump’s conservative agenda has angered that side of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, these people are the ones who like buying his Teslas.
So…what do they do now?
Aha! They’ve decided to cover up the now-infamous logo with others like Toyota or Hyundai, but keep the cars themselves. Awesome! Now no one will be able to tell that this person drives a Tesla…oh wait, people still automatically know it is a Tesla.
Some people believe that slapping a sticker on a Tesla does nothing and won’t help either side of the issue. Junior Caiya McAlister said how “No one cares…There are so many Teslas in California, it’s just a car now.” Especially in places like San Clemente, Teslas are now a common feature of life that people mostly just tend to ignore. The people covering up the logo are the ones drawing attention to it, especially if the sticker they put up is particularly profane. However, most of the people around them will just acknowledge the change and move on. In other words, it doesn’t have the desired impact that the protestors are hoping for.
Others, like freshman Cyrus Dehn, ignore the “politics…[as it] doesn’t really matter that much” in the grand scheme of things. He cited the “reduced environmental impacts” as the real reason why Teslas should be bought, and not to support one political side or another.
In short, what this boils down to is just free speech. People own these cars, and they can decide how to modify them to suit their needs. If it is covering up the logo with another logo, then they can do that. If it is leaving it be, then it is leaving it be. This is America, and people have the right to decorate their cars however they see fit.
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