Everyone Hates Elon

Everyone Hates Elon
Formation2025
PurposeProtesting against Elon Musk and other billionaires
Location
Methods
Websitepeoplevselon.co.uk

Everyone Hates Elon is a British political campaign group. The group formed in 2025 to voice opposition to businessman and US presidential advisor Elon Musk, citing his behaviour in the Department of Government Efficiency, his statements about British politics, and promotion of disinformation. The group creates humorous parody advertisements and viral social media campaigns to communicate their critiques of Musk and other billionaires. Their activities have included distributing posters criticising Musk and Jeff Bezos, as well as establishing a fundraising campaign in support of "causes [Musk] hates".[1] The group also organised an interactive protest event where participants were invited to destroy a Tesla Model S to raise money for food banks.

Background

See also: Political activities of Elon Musk and Public image of Elon Musk

Everyone Hates Elon formed in early 2025 in response to Musk's interest in British affairs, including his support for far-right activist and anti-Islam campaigner Tommy Robinson, as well as Musk's Nazi-like salute at the second inauguration of Donald Trump.[2] The group began as a "ranty group chat" among a small group of friends,[1] and is currently made up of "just a handful of people",[2] with members choosing to remain anonymous.[1] They told The Hollywood Reporter that they were working to "piss off Elon Musk one small action at a time", and that their campaigns targeting Tesla were intended to encourage the public to express their opposition to Musk by withdrawing their support from the company, which is the main source of Musk's wealth.[2] In an interview with Anna Russell for The New Yorker, Everyone Hates Elon founders described their strategy of using memorable, humorous slogans to combat the catchy political messaging used by the far-right; they explained, "We can't outspend [Musk] ... but we know that we're funnier than him. He's definitely not funny."[1] They also described their confusion as to Musk's motives for becoming involved in UK politics; Russell noted that a 2025 YouGov poll, which reported that eighty percent of British people had unfavourable opinions of Elon Musk,[3] indicates that the group's "dislike" of the billionaire is shared by a majority of the UK public.[1]

Campaigns

Elon Musk

Everyone Hates Elon's first action was to create a fundraising campaign, titled People Versus Elon, which allows donors to pledge one penny (£0.01) every time Musk posts on X, with all funds to be donated to causes that Musk dislikes.[1] These include organisations such as Women for Refugee Women, Hope not Hate, and Rainbow Migration, a charity supporting LGBTQI+ asylum seekers.[4][5] The campaign, which is anticipated to raise £150,000 over the course of one year,[1] was discussed in a February 2025 episode of The Guilty Feminist podcast.[2][6]

Everyone Hates Elon rose to further prominence in February 2025 when they began a guerrilla poster campaign, installing posters criticising Elon Musk around London; one poster read "Elon Musk is a bellend. Signed, the UK".[1] Several posters were designed as parody advertisements for Tesla,[7] carrying the Tesla wordmark accompanied by the parody tagline "The Swasticar".[8] These posters displayed slogans including "Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds", "Now with White Power Steering",[a] and "Autopilot for your car. Autocrat for your country."[9][7] The posters covered existing advertisements at bus shelters in Clerkenwell and Bethnal Green.[7][8][10] The group also produced and distributed posters targeting Musk-owned social networking service X (formerly Twitter); the posters showed an image of Musk doing a Nazi-like salute. One design carried the slogan "X marks the rot"[b] and another read "Delete your account. If the bar lets Nazis in, it's a Nazi bar."[c][11] In an advertisement mimicking a public health information poster using the NHS logo, Everyone Hates Elon called on the public to recognise parasites, and listed as examples ticks, worms, and billionaires.[1]

Alongside the street furniture poster campaign, Everyone Hates Elon installed banners on London Underground trains. One of these posters carried the phrase "Hate doesn't sell. Just ask Elon Musk", alongside an image of image of Musk's salute and a graphic of Tesla's declining share price.[12][7] Transport for London later confirmed that the group's posters "were not authorised" to be put up on the network, and that unauthorised posters would be "expeditiously removed".[11][1]

Everyone Hates Elon also created and distributed stickers saying "Don't Buy a Swasticar", and shared the sticker templates with their followers on Instagram.[8] The group also turned the image of Musk's Nazi-like salute into a life-sized cutout, and installed it in a North London Tesla showroom.[1] They created a range of Car Freshners with the slogan "Musk B-Gone" and tagline "covers the stench of fascism".[13]

Jeff Bezos and Amazon

On 14 April 2025, singer Katy Perry was part of an all-female space flight run by Blue Origin, a space technology company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.[14] Bezos also founded Amazon, and both his own tax avoidance and that of Amazon have been the subject of criticism for several years.[15][16] Following the space flight, Everyone Hates Elon produced posters targeting Bezos and Perry. One, which was installed near Amazon's UK headquarters in Shoreditch, read "If you can afford to send Katy Perry to space, you can afford to pay more taxes."[17] The group also installed posters featuring Perry outside a branch of Amazon Fresh in Angel, London; these posters carried the Amazon logo alongside the caption "Our tax avoidance is out of this world, just ask Katy Perry."[17]

In June 2025, Everyone Hates Elon collaborated with Greenpeace to protest against the wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez. The wedding, held in Venice, Italy, had already attracted opposition from residents of the city, and protests were held in the weeks leading up to the event by a local group called "No Space for Bezos".[18] On 23 June, activists from Everyone Hates Elon and Greenpeace unfurled a large banner, measuring 20 by 20 m (66 by 66 ft),[19] in Piazza San Marco; the banner featured an image of Bezos laughing, along with the slogan "If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax."[20][21] A statement from the two groups explained that although Bezos is one of the wealthiest people in the world, he "is reported to pay a 1.1% true tax rate",[20] and that the aim of the protest was to highlight the comparatively low tax contributions of billionaires, who nonetheless "exacerbat[e] the climate crisis with environmentally unsustainable lifestyles".[22][23] The banner was soon removed by local police.[24]

Other campaigns

In the May 2025 United Kingdom local elections, the right-wing populist party Reform UK gained majority control of Kent County Council.[25] In response to this result, Everyone Hates Elon installed posters in locations around Kent; the posters, including a billboard in Ramsgate, carried an image of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage with the slogan "The only minority destroying this country is the super rich".[26]

London vs Musk

On 10 April 2025, Everyone Hates Elon held a one-off participatory protest art event, titled 'London vs Musk', in South London. During the event, members of the public destroyed a Tesla Model S, which had been donated anonymously for the purpose.[27] The car was non-functioning and would otherwise have been scrapped; its battery had already been recycled.[27][1]

Everyone Hates Elon described the event as a "public art piece"[28] allowing participants to express their frustration with the behaviour of Musk and other billionaires and show their opposition to the growth of the far right.[27] The event was described by The New Yorker as an "outdoor 'rage room'";[1] around 100 participants were allowed access to the car for 30 seconds each,[1] and used baseball bats and sledgehammers to destroy the vehicle.[29] They also spray-painted the car's bodywork with phrases criticising Musk, expressing dislike of billionaires in general, and calling for wealth taxation.[30]

Following its destruction, the vehicle will be crushed and auctioned, with proceeds to be donated to food bank charities.[31][32][1] A spokesperson for Everyone Hates Elon explained that the group sees a connection between record numbers of billionaires and record numbers of food banks.[28] They said that the art was "a symbol of resistance to billionaire influence".[33]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ A combination of the phrases "white power" and "power steering".
  2. ^ A play on the phrase X marks the spot.
  3. ^ A reference to the paradox of tolerance.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Russell, Anna (24 April 2025). "The Guerrilla Marketing Campaign Against Elon Musk". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on 24 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d Ford, Lily (4 March 2025). "Meet Everyone Hates Elon, the U.K.-Based Collective Attempting to Take Down Musk: 'Let's Make Billionaires Losers Again'". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 29 March 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  3. ^ Smith, Matthew (18 March 2025). "Political favourability ratings, March 2025". YouGov. Archived from the original on 17 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  4. ^ Barber, Olivia (11 March 2025). "Campaign using Elon Musk's tweets to 'fight the far right' set to raise £100,000". Left Foot Forward. Archived from the original on 15 March 2025. Retrieved 27 April 2025.
  5. ^ "People vs Elon: turning hate into hope". Rainbow Migration. 27 January 2025. Archived from the original on 14 March 2025. Retrieved 27 April 2025.
  6. ^ Frances-White, Deborah; Evans, Natalie; Laming, Georgie (3 February 2025) [Recorded 30 January 2025]. 425. People vs Elon Musk with Natalie Evans and Georgie Laming. The Guilty Feminist. Acast. Archived from the original on 13 February 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  7. ^ a b c d Butler, Alexander (16 March 2025). "Why do fake Elon Musk ads keep appearing around London and on the Tube?". The Independent. Archived from the original on 1 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  8. ^ a b c Mouriquand, David (27 February 2025). "'Don't buy a Swasticar': Anti-Elon Musk Tesla advert goes viral". Euronews. Archived from the original on 1 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  9. ^ Billson, Chantelle (6 March 2025). "UK campaign group Everyone Hates Elon goes viral with guerrilla anti-Musk campaign". PinkNews. Archived from the original on 28 March 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  10. ^ Shear, Michael D. (6 April 2025). "'0 to 1939 in 3 seconds': Why Anti-Elon Musk Satire Is Flourishing in Britain". The New York Times. London. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 6 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  11. ^ a b Holden, Jake (6 March 2025). "TfL responds to 'unauthorised' anti Elon Musk adverts appearing at London Underground stations". MyLondon. Reach plc. Archived from the original on 5 May 2025. Retrieved 26 April 2025.
  12. ^ Mahmood, Basit (3 March 2025). "Musk meltdown: London tube ad mocks Tesla boss over falling share prices". Left Foot Forward. Archived from the original on 3 March 2025. Retrieved 26 April 2025.
  13. ^ Mahmood, Basit (21 March 2025). "Anti-Elon Musk group hands out Musk B-Gone air fresheners at London Tesla store". Left Foot Forward. Archived from the original on 26 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  14. ^ Helmore, Edward (14 April 2025). "Blue Origin crew including Katy Perry safely returns to Earth after space flight". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 16 April 2025. Retrieved 26 April 2025.
  15. ^ Eisinger, Jesse; Ernsthausen, Jeff; Kiel, Paul (8 June 2021). "The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax". ProPublica. Archived from the original on 24 April 2025. Retrieved 26 April 2025.
  16. ^ Neate, Rupert (4 May 2021). "Amazon had sales income of €44bn in Europe in 2020 but paid no corporation tax". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 March 2025. Retrieved 26 April 2025.
  17. ^ a b Barber, Olivia (22 April 2025). "Campaigners protest Amazon's tax record with spoof ads mocking Katy Perry space flight". Left Foot Forward. Archived from the original on 26 April 2025. Retrieved 26 April 2025.
  18. ^ Walker, Chloe (24 June 2025). "'No space for Bezos': Locals protest as Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez descend on Venice for extravagant three-day wedding". Sky News Australia. Archived from the original on 24 June 2025. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  19. ^ Gaffney, Sharon (25 June 2025). "Bezos wedding venue disruption 'a symbolic victory for people power', activist group says". France 24. Archived from the original on 26 June 2025. Retrieved 26 June 2025. p. From 00:04:01: ... we wanted to ... put a message out there, and we did it on a ... 20 by 20 metre banner.
  20. ^ a b Vivarelli, Nick (23 June 2025). "Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Wedding Protests Joined by Greenpeace: 'If You Can Rent Venice for Your Wedding, You Can Pay More Tax'". Variety. Archived from the original on 24 June 2025. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  21. ^ Giuffrida, Angela (24 June 2025). "Jeff Bezos alters Venice wedding plans after threat of inflatable crocodiles". The Guardian. Venice. Archived from the original on 27 June 2025. Retrieved 27 June 2025.
  22. ^ "Greenpeace joins anti-Bezos protest with Venice banner complaining about tax breaks". ABC News. The Associated Press. 23 June 2025. Archived from the original on 23 June 2025. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  23. ^ "Greenpeace joins anti-Bezos wedding protests in Venice". ITV News. 23 June 2025. Archived from the original on 24 June 2025. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  24. ^ "Greenpeace joins anti-Bezos protest with Venice banner complaining about billionaire tax breaks". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. 23 June 2025. Archived from the original on 24 June 2025. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  25. ^ Maisner, Stuart (2 May 2025). "Reform wins control in Kent after Tory wipeout". BBC News. Archived from the original on 3 May 2025. Retrieved 4 May 2025.
  26. ^
  27. ^ a b c McCusker, Kate (10 April 2025). "Sledgehammer-wielding Musk critics smash up Tesla in London art project". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  28. ^ a b Campbell, Hebe (11 April 2025). "Tesla smashed to pieces in London protest against Elon Musk". The Independent. Archived from the original on 11 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  29. ^ "Musk critics smash up Tesla car in London to raise money for charities". Associated Press. London. 10 April 2025. Archived from the original on 15 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  30. ^ Murray, Conor (11 April 2025). "Tesla Protests And Vandalism Surge: U.K. Protest Group Takes Sledgehammer To Tesla In Public Demonstration". Forbes. Archived from the original on 15 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  31. ^ Gerardy, Justine (11 April 2025). "London Activists Destroy Tesla In Anti-Elon Musk Protest". Barron's. Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on 15 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  32. ^ Dreer, Adele (11 April 2025). "«Everyone Hates Elon»: les images d'une Tesla détruite à coups de masse pour un «projet artistique»" ["Everyone Hates Elon": images of a Tesla destroyed with sledgehammers for an "art project"]. Le Figaro (in French). Archived from the original on 12 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  33. ^ Phillips, Jacob (11 April 2025). "'Everyone Hates Elon' demonstrators smash Tesla in London protest stunt". The Standard. Archived from the original on 26 April 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2025.

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.