Over the past two months, a series of protests targeting Elon Musk has made headlines around the world. Known collectively as Tesla Takedown, the movement says it aims to stop Musk from overthrowing the government. “We are working to stop the coup,” Tesla Takedown’s page on an activism crowdfunding site says.

But from Tesla’s Takedown’s earliest days, the movement has exhibited an almost obsessive advocacy for Ukraine. Through endless Bluesky posts, protests timed to take place alongside pro-Ukraine demonstrations, the displaying of Ukrainian flags and signage at Tesla Takedown events, and messaging glorifying Zelensky, the anti-Musk movement has demonstrated an intense and persistent preoccupation with the Ukrainian cause. The question is why.

Tesla Takedown’s Ukraine focus was evident from its earliest days. One of the movement’s key organizers, and by far its most high profile spokesperson, is Alex Winter, the actor who played Ted in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” In an interview with Business Insider, Winter recounts launching the movement after seeing a February 8 Bluesky post by Joan Donovan — a sociologist who made disputed claims that she was forced out of Harvard, where she ran a misinformation research project — about joining an anti-Tesla protest. (Donovan had previously done a panel with Winter for a screening of his 2022 documentary, “The YouTube Effect,” which largely focuses on making the case that YouTube is to blame for much right-wing extremism.) With Donovan’s blessing, Winter set up TeslaTakedown.com, which was registered on February 12 and launched two days later.

A day before he saw Donovan’s post, Winter quote-posted an account that had posted a Washington Post article titled, “Gutting USAID threatens billions of dollar for U.S. farms, businesses.” The original post read, “US farmers sold $2 billion of food to USAID. Not any more.” But in his own post, Winter went much further: “And all because [USAID] had the audacity to go after Elon for murdering Ukrainians.” Three days later, Winter made his first Tesla Takedown post.

While I was researching for this article, Winter deleted all of his posts — the majority of which were related to Tesla Takedown, activism for the Ukraine war, and criticizing Trump — dated before April 20th. I made several attempts to reach Winter about why he removed all these posts, but was unable to connect. Prior to the deletions, he posted Tesla Takedown content at a frenetic pace, with hundreds of such posts over the past two months alone. I was able to screenshot some of these posts before he deleted them; others I recorded, with corresponding dates, in my notes. Google indexing and news reports confirm the dates of Winter’s posts, and his reposts of content from other movement leaders.

A little more than a week after launching TeslaTakedown.com, Winter reposted an account that had posted the #TeslaTakedown hashtag with a call to “join the fight.” That account, Hedy Lamarr, has as its profile pic a Ukrainian army battle cry, “Slava Ukraini!” cast against the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Like many in the Tesla Takedown movement, the account posts intensively about Ukraine. Hedy Lamarr has attacked Musk for going after USAID funding, and, echoing Winter himself, asked “Mr. Musk, How Much Is a Ukrainian Child Worth?”

On March 1, Winter re-posted an account attacking Trump for belittling Zelensky in the infamous White House Meeting. The next day he reposted an account showing a photo with the text, “Zelensky = Hero.” The day after, he reposted yet another account associated with Tesla Takedown that has “Slava Ukraini” as its profile pic. The day after, he reposted a separate account tied to the anti-Musk protests whose profile pic is the Ukrainian flag altered to include the “Tryzub” trident coat of arms frequently employed by the country’s military (and featured on Zelensky’s famous black t-shirts).

At dozens of Tesla Takedown protests, some of the most prominent signage is focused not on Tesla, but on Ukraine. This includes a March 15 protest in Dedham, Massachusetts, where protesters held “Stand With Ukraine” signs; a protest in rural Colorado where a protester held a “We support Ukraine” poster; another in Vallejo, California where a Ukraine sign was among the most prominent; White Plains, New York, where one protester was draped in a Ukraine flag and another held a sign with the country’s military emblem on it; Columbus, Ohio, where protesters held Ukraine flags and “Support Ukraine” signs; a separate protest in Columbus, where protesters held pro-Ukraine signs; another in Lawrence, New Jersey, where Ukraine signs were displayed. There was pro-Ukraine imagery prominently displayed at Tesla Takedown protests in Spokane, Washington; Sarasota, Florida; Rochester, New York; Smithtown, Long Island; Kansas City, Missouri; Madison, Wisconsin; Northbrook, Illinois; Salt Lake City, Utah; Troy, Michigan; Arlington, Virginia; and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The movement’s pro-Ukraine advocacy was by no means limited to the US. In the weeks after Tesla Takedown launched in the US, a group of UK activists started a fork of the movement that mixed in even more Ukraine activism than protesters stateside. One of the leaders of Tesla Takedown UK, Theodora Sutcliffe, began posting about the movement after seeing a post by Alex Winter. Days later, Sutcliffe — who had posted almost no Ukraine-related content since 2023 — posted a flier for a Ukraine demonstration sponsored by Campaign for Ukraine and Ukraine Solidarity Campaign on February 25. Days earlier, the Tesla Takedown UK account that Sutcliffe moderates advertised one of the group’s first protests, explicitly organized to take place at a location within walking distance of the Ukraine march in London that day.

Less than two weeks later, the Tesla Takedown UK Bluesky account (which is moderated by Sutcliffe) advertised a pro-Ukraine “emergency [demonstration]” — also sponsored by Campaign for Ukraine and Ukraine Solidarity Campaign — at the US Embassy in London, writing, “There’s a demo this afternoon in support of #Ukraine at the US Embassy in #London... If you’re in #Cambridge and can’t make it to London, there’s also a vigil at King’s Parade.” The account ended the post with a hashtag of Ukraine’s battle cry, Slava Ukraini. (A Tesla Takedown representative declined to comment for this story.)

On March 19, Tesla Takedown UK posted a photo of a pro-Ukraine protestor, writing, “Hating Elon is a very broad church, but if you support Ukraine, you must oppose Musk — full stop.” On March 24, Tesla Takedown UK posted a video of an anti-Musk protest outside a Tesla showroom where, once again, the only flag on display was Ukraine’s. A day later, the group reposted an anti-Musk account’s post showing a small dog with a sign that says, “Elon eats pets” with the Ukraine flag as the dog’s backdrop. Three days later, Tesla Takedown UK held a protest in Nottingham where demonstrators held a massive sign that read, “Defy Trump Defend Ukraine.” The same day, Ukraine Solidarity Campaign advertised Tesla Takedown protests across the UK, writing, “Join protests against #ElonMusk and #Tesla in London, Leeds, Nottingham, Manchester, Bristol, Winchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Sheffield.”

On April 5, Tesla Takedown protested outside an Oxford Street Tesla pop-up in London waving Ukraine flags. On April 12, Tesla Takedown UK partnered with Ukraine Solidarity Campaign for an anti-Musk protest at a Tesla corporate office in London. And a week later, the account reposted a Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Bluesky post advertising a march to benefit children in Ukraine co-sponsored by a number of groups, including Ukraine Solidarity Campaign and Campaign for Ukraine. Recently, an event page for a May 3 Tesla Takedown protest shows a man holding a Ukraine Solidarity Campaign flag draped in a Ukraine flag and holding a sign that reads “Don’t fund fascists.”

There is an objection here that this is just mere Current Thing-ism at work. But the sheer volume of Ukraine pro-war messaging in the Tesla Takedown protests on two continents is difficult to ignore. And though there are occasional posts by Tesla Takedown accounts on trans issues or Gaza, they are rare. Further, we have been unable to find any cross-organized protests for either of those movements — or any other issue, for that matter. So what explains it?

In April, I reported a story about the campaign to ban X links from Reddit following Musk’s controversial post-inauguration arm gesture. One of the things my investigation showed is that the earliest subreddits propagating this campaign were communities dedicated to British Premier League football clubs. In the course of my reporting, I came across an unusual post on X published by the Armed Forces Spurs Official Supporters Club — a group of fans of the Tottenham team who serve, or have served, in the British military — that read:

As long as Mr. Musk continues to influence policies that undermine military aid, real-time defence [sic], and support for Ukraine’s people and Armed Forces, we cannot, in good conscience, continue using this platform he owns, uses to do harm and significantly profits from. Out. 🇬🇧 🇺🇦

As strange as an X ban link pushed by die-hard football fans was, this was stranger still. Here was a group of football fans objecting to Musk’s influence of policies “that undermine military aid, real-time defence, and support for Ukraine’s people and Armed Forces.” The images in the post were from a 2022 “Football Stands Together” campaign in support of Ukraine that saw football stadiums around the country light up in blue and yellow.

The surface level explanation for the Reddit X ban was Musk’s arm gesture at the post-inauguration event where he spoke. But that isn’t satisfying rationale for a campaign that appeared so intensively coordinated, where many of the X ban proposals — which appeared templated, often sharing the same phrasing, syntax, and verbiage verbatim — became the top posts of all time in those subreddits. What would justify such (potential) information warfare is the national security threat represented by the potential loss of billions of dollars in critical funding to the Ukraine war effort.

For many Americans, the Ukraine-Russia conflict is a foreign war that has little (if anything) to do with us. It’s another forever war funded by the American taxpayer for unseen, mostly nebulous reasons. This, however, is not the European perspective. On the continent, the war is only nominally between Ukraine and Russia — it’s a war between Russia and Europe.

When Trump called for a negotiated peace after the election, the signal this sent to Europe was clear: it was about to lose a war with its most dangerous enemy. And while Americans see US aid to Ukraine as their taxpayer dollars funding someone else’s war, European leaders see it in the inverse: Ukraine is sacrificing the lives of its soldiers to fight Europe’s war on its behalf. The least — and, given the state of European militaries, the most — it could do is keep the money and weapons flowing.

After the election, it didn’t take long for Musk to voice his opposition to further US funding for Ukraine, including by calling Zelensky the “all time champ” of pulling off history-making money heists. This followed months of statements by Musk calling the conflict a “forever war” with no exit strategy. In Musk, European policymakers had their worst nightmare brought to life: a centi-billionaire unconstrained by the dynamics of political power with an unmatched ability to influence hundreds of millions of people — a figure with no vulnerabilities, except, maybe, one: his publicly owned company.

The influence Musk might have on the security of the European project hasn’t gone unnoticed by Tesla Takedown. On March 20, Tesla Takedown UK published a post about the EU making this linkage explicit.

“The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 are coming for Europe,” Tesla Takedown UK wrote. “Stopping Musk is key to stopping these authoritarians.” The post linked to an article on a climate activist website claiming the Heritage Foundation was implementing plans aimed at “bulldozing the European Union” and argued that Project 2025 policies “are being executed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has decimated several departments including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)…”

What was Tesla Takedown UK’s proposed solution to this brewing crisis in international relations? That is simple: “Join a #TeslaTakedown protest in #London, #Leeds, #Reading or... #Reykjavik this Saturday.”

This is not to suggest that the anti-Musk movement can be reduced to a single policy imperative. As Tesla Takedown admits, it’s a big church. But there is little doubt that, far from a movement seeking to use Tesla as a lever for domestic US politics, there is much more at play here.

— Ashley Rindsberg