Tesla owners confirmed on Wednesday that an online map decorated with an image of a Molotov cocktail includes precise personal information about them, such as residential addresses, which increases the fears that activists opposed to the CEO of Tesla Musk, the billionaire, Elon Musk, can point them for vandalism.
The online map was made live on Monday, showing the names, addresses and contact information of some owners and concessionaires of Tesla and members of the Trump administration in an attempt to prepare a subsequent reaction against Musk for their role in the Trump administration.
Musk condemned the website, writing on Tuesday in X: “Promote the destruction of teslas throughout the country is extreme domestic terrorism!”
The website, which was intermittently inaccessible on Wednesday, encourages visitors to commit vandalism, even through the use of a spray can to “unleash its artistic touch” in a nearby Tesla and through other “creative protest expressions.” And in a reference to the growing vandalism of Tesla vehicles and facilities in recent weeks, the cursor in the map desktop version is an image of a Molotov cocktail.
NBC News spoke with six Tesla owners or its representatives who confirmed that at least certain information on the website was precise, although other owners said that in some cases the numbers or telephone addresses were outdated.
On Tuesday, someone armed with a Molotov gun and cocktails attacked a Tesla service center in Las Vegas, which click the “resist” spray, firing several shots and burning multiple cars, authorities said. It is not clear if the map was linked to the incident.
The website is causing concern among some Tesla owners who fear that they or their vehicles can be attacked.
“Having our personal addresses is not something that I think it’s great,” said a San Diego Tesla owner called Scott. His family has two teslas, and asked that his name be retained to avoid harassment. He said they bought the vehicles years ago, before the Musk alliance with President Donald Trump, and that there was no financial sense to sell them now.
“I think there are much more effective ways of protesting than attacking people’s property,” he said.
Some other Tesla owners said they were not particularly concerned about the site. One said that the information listed on them was outdated, and another said that personal information had become omnipresent online anyway.
The site pushes Tesla’s owners to join the trend of people who sell their vehicles so that they can dissociate from Musk. The site says that it will eliminate the personal information of the owners if they provide “evidence that their Tesla has sold.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to a comment request on Wednesday. In an X post, he advised the owners to turn on the “Sentinel Mode”, which allows owners to see and record live videos of the cameras of their vehicles.
The site, called “Degequest”, refers to Musk’s work for Trump as head of the Government Efficiency Department (Doge). Musk has used the position to try to reduce federal expenditure and reorganize entire federal agencies, which leads to repeated clashes not only in federal courts and with Congress, but also within the Trump cabinet. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that the closing of Musk of the United States International Development Agency “probably violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways,” a decision that Musk attacked as incorrect.
The map included only a small fraction of all Tesla owners, listing only a handful in some cities where teslas are relatively common, such as San Francisco.
It is not clear who is behind the online map or where they obtained the data they published. The creators did not respond to an email sent to an address that appears on the website requesting more information or comments.
The domain registration records for the website indicated that it was registered through an anonymous domain accommodation platform called NJalla Okta LLC.
The map was launched after an increase in vandalism against Tesla. In addition to the Las Vegas incident, other informed attacks have involved cargo stations in the Boston area and more Molotov cocktails thrown into a dealership in Colorado. On Monday, the San Diego County Sheriff’s office reported that the swastika were painted in multiple teslas in a concessionaire.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the attacks against the property of Tesla are “nothing less than domestic terrorism” and promised federal investigations.
The Department of Justice and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comments on the map.
