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Tesla Owners Can’t Stop Buying These Anti-Elon Musk Bumper Stickers [1]
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Date: 2025-03-28 21:15:21+00:00
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Between Tesla‘s autopilot barreling through “Wile E. Coyote” walls to massive recalls over shoddy glue jobs, times have been tough for Tesla. The biggest problem, for many liberal-leaning Tesla owners, is Tesla CEO Elon Musk‘s continued association with extreme right-wing politics and DOGE’s chainsaw approach to vital functions of the federal government.
What Tesla owners do about it has varied. Some have sold their Teslas, while others have attempted to disguise their cars by rebadging them with logos from other manufacturers like Audi and Subaru.
The most common approach has been the time-honored way political messages have been conveyed by automobile owners for decades: bumper stickers.
You’ve probably seen the “I Bought This Before We Knew Elon Was Crazy” stickers around (sometimes dubiously plastered on Cybertrucks). There are hundreds of listings for anti-Elon bumper stickers, but the original is produced by Matt Hiller. The Hawaii-based aquarium employee’s Etsy and Amazon shop, MadPufferStickers, shifted from selling punny fish-themed stickers to decals with messages critical of Elon Musk.
MadPufferStickers
Hiller sold his first sticker in February 2023, and he was inspired to open up shop following Musk’s takeover of Twitter. “I had been interested in a Tesla, but there was no way I was going to drive this guy’s car and potentially be confused for someone who endorsed him. I knew there had to be millions like me who already had Teslas who were now looking for a way to distance themselves from him. So I made my first sticker,” Hiller explained over email. Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The shop blew up following the 2024 election, and demand doesn’t seem to have slowed. “The sticker sales have been astounding. With each notable Elon moment (for example, going on stage with Trump at the rally, his doing a conference in the Oval Office, his “salute”), there have been massive spikes that seem to sustain for weeks until he does something else.” The steady drip of reviews on Hiller’s Etsy page seems to confirm the ongoing demand for his bumper stickers.
Hiller’s anti-Elon offerings started with “I Bought This Before We Knew Elon Was Crazy,” the wording of which was intentional. “[It] was deliberate because it implies they didn’t know he was crazy at first, then came around. Whereas “I Bought This Before Elon Went Crazy” points to a non-specific moment in time. You can’t really slap that one on a car bought today.”
Hiller now stocks stickers with both the shorter and longer versions of the message, as well as many other statements. There’s “Elon Cheats at Video Games,” “Space Clown,” and the decidedly straightforward “Elon Sucks.” The newest offering is “Elon is a Dogebag.” Hiller says his most popular (and frequently copied) is the “Anti Elon Tesla Club” sticker, a play on the streetwear brand, Anti Social Social Club.
As the headlines about Musk pile up, so do the envelopes. “It’s been incredibly hard keeping up with the demand. I have a team of friends helping me pre-stuff envelopes so that at night, all my wife and I need to do is print the labels and seal them. Customer service is rough. We’re blowing through this so fast at night [that] I’m packing the wrong sticker sometimes, or sending empty envelopes on accident. I always make it right, though.”
You can see some of Hiller’s most popular stickers below.
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