It's 'Domestic Terrorism,' Says Bondi as More Teslas Burn

Attacks on Tesla dealerships will be treated as "domestic terrorism," Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday as more Tesla vehicles in Las Vegas were targeted, per the New York Times. People have been selling off their Teslas, citing the behavior of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a senior advisor to President Trump who's led efforts to slash government jobs. There have also been targeted attacks on Tesla vehicles across the country. A person fired shots at vehicles and windows at a Tesla dealership in Oregon last week. On Friday, vandals smashed windows and painted swastikas on a dealership near San Diego and a woman allegedly spraypainted anti-Musk messages on a Tesla facility in Illinois.

At least five vehicles were set on fire Tuesday at a Tesla collision center in Las Vegas in what authorities described as a "targeted attack," per the Guardian. Security cameras recorded a person dressed all in black throwing Molotov cocktails around 2:45am. The suspect also fired bullets into vehicles and spraypainted "resist" on the facility's front doors, police said. "The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism," Bondi said in a statement, per the Times. "We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes."

As "there is no stand-alone federal domestic terrorism law that includes penalties," the perpetrators of such crimes would be charged under other federal laws, though Bondi didn't specify which, per the Times. She did say the accused could face at least five years in prison. Both President Trump and Musk have described the vandalism as "terrorism." Trump has claimed the attacks are financially supported "by people very highly political on the left." Musk blamed Democrats in a Tuesday interview with Fox News. "It turns out when you take away people's, you know, the money they're receiving fraudulently, they get very upset," he said, per the New York Post. "They basically want to kill me because I'm stopping their fraud." (More Tesla stories.)