I didn’t buy my Tesla in 2020 to make a political statement. I bought it to stop burning gas. It was an intentional step toward reducing my carbon footprint — aligning my values with my actions in the best way I could.
And I’m not going to undo that choice just because the narrative around it has changed.
What’s unfolding now is a case study in how some progressive movements have become more invested in symbols than systems. In a rush to distance ourselves from harmful figures, we risk losing sight of the actual work of change — which is slow, layered, and often messy. Chastising someone for using an electric vehicle because its CEO has become polarizing isn’t activism. It’s performance.
Let’s talk about the company’s namesake: Nikola Tesla, the inventor, futurist, and engineer who championed alternating current, clean energy, and innovation for the public good. He died largely unrecognized and in poverty while others profited off his genius. His name was later adopted by a company whose CEO has made billions — and headlines — for reasons that increasingly depart from Tesla’s values.
The irony is sharp. But the car still works.
Progress in a capitalist system is rarely neat. Sometimes flawed people build useful things. Sometimes good tools are born inside messy systems. That doesn’t negate their value.
The cultural narrative around Tesla has flipped. Years ago, when I bought my first Tesla, it was the political right that mocked the car. My father — a lifelong Republican — urged me to get rid of it. He saw it as a symbol of elitism: impractical, smug, unnecessary.
I bought my second Tesla in 2024 for the same reason as the first: to continue reducing my reliance on fossil fuels.
Now, that same father has warmed to it. Tesla is often praised in conservative circles, while many progressives are actively protesting against the company. What changed? Not the car, but the story we tell about it.
If the political pendulum can swing that easily, maybe the car isn’t the problem. Maybe we’ve just gotten too comfortable treating every purchase as a declaration of identity, rather than asking: What does this tool actually do?
I consider myself a progressive independent. I care deeply about climate action and corporate accountability. But I also believe we can’t afford to collapse every conversation into a purity test, in which the appearance of complicity is treated as paramount.
Nearly everything we consume has a shadow behind it. The phone in your pocket, the clothes on your back, the coffee in your hand — most are produced through labor conditions we’d reject if we saw them up close. Most of us keep using them anyway, not out of malice or hypocrisy, but because we’re navigating the complexity of modern life the best we can.
Take Apple, for example. Many of us use iPhones or MacBooks, despite well-documented labor abuses overseas. But those harms feel distant.
Tesla, meanwhile, is close enough to see — and far enough from most people’s lived experience to criticize without consequence. And it’s not just proximity fueling the outrage. Elon Musk’s increasingly reckless political behavior — from inflammatory gestures to interventions in federal policy — has given plenty of Americans legitimate reasons for concern.
Yet what troubles me is the selective outrage. It’s easy to denounce a choice you didn’t make. It’s even easier to suggest someone sell an expensive, low-emission vehicle without acknowledging the real trade-offs involved.
Progress, after all, isn’t just about individual choices, it’s also about building systems that make better choices possible. Tesla’s EV charging network, once exclusive to its own customers, is now opening to other electric vehicles, creating critical infrastructure for broader clean transportation. That’s a tangible environmental good that extends far beyond any single company or CEO.
This isn’t about defending billionaires or excusing harm. It’s about refusing to discard tools that still serve the future we’re trying to build. It’s about staying focused on outcomes, not just optics.
Progress doesn’t happen in clean lines. It happens through contradiction. Through persistence. Through a willingness to acknowledge complexity.
So no, I’m not selling my Tesla. Not because I’m ignoring the conversation — but because I’m engaged in it. Because I believe evolution doesn’t come from symbolic purging. It comes from working — however imperfectly — toward progress.
