Embarrassed Teslas Drivers Buying Huge Numbers of Anti-Elon Bumper Stickers

“There have gotten to be so many people who find themselves so embarrassed to be repping him on the streets driving their Teslas and who need to fully disavow this man.”

Drag Race

For longtime Tesla owners, Elon Musk’s rising rightwing crusading has made their electrical vehicles into mortifying red flags — and now, a bunch are sticker-slapping again.

Because the local weather change information website Heatmap reports, a Hawaii-based sticker maker is doing a booming enterprise promoting bumper stickers to Tesla house owners who, as one among his wares advertises, received their EVs “before we knew [Musk] was crazy.”

“I began making stickers by myself earlier than the Elon sticker,” defined Matthew Hiller, the Waikiki resident behind the favored Etsy store “Mad Puffer Stickers.”

An aquarium worker who usually makes “fish stickers” for work, Hiller stated that he received the thought to begin making his tongue-in-cheek equipment in 2023 when contemplating shopping for a Tesla of his personal. After Musk bought Twitter and began his “excessive censoring,” nonetheless, the artistic realized he positively could not handle the heat that got here with being associated with such a toxic brand — and that gave him an thought.

“I figured, there’s no approach I’m shopping for a Tesla — however there have gotten to be so many people who find themselves so embarrassed to be repping him on the streets driving their Teslas and who need to fully disavow this man,” Hiller instructed Heatmap. “As a result of I do know I’d need to promote mine instantly after I noticed what he was doing.”

Hiller’s first sticker, a small run of the aforementioned “I purchased this earlier than we knew Elon was loopy,” repeatedly went viral on social media and even ended up on news sites like Business Insider and the Washington Post. Unsurprisingly, that meant he needed to print approach, far more.

“I’d be promoting 5 to seven a day,” he stated, “after which out of the blue, there could be 50 a day as a result of another person talked about it on Reddit.”

Line Goes Up

Greater than a yr in, Hiller says that the eye his anti-Musk stickers have gotten is “insane” — and that within the aftermath of Donald Trump’s electoral upset, gross sales are up “unbelievably.”

“I can barely sustain,” he instructed Heatmap. “My full-time job is on the aquarium, and I come house and pack stickers till 11 p.m. It’s simply me and my spouse doing all of it.”

Clearly, there are heaps and plenty of low-cost knockoffs being bought on Amazon and different such websites — however contemplating that Hiller’s are lower than $10 a pop with out Etsy’s sale costs, getting an authentic remains to be a viable choice.

In a “ballpark” estimate, the sticker salesman stated he is bought greater than 10,000 models since final yr, with a mean of 180 going out per day.

“It’s tough,” Hiller stated.

Extra on anti-Musk sentiment: Elon Musk Responds to Concerns That His Political Antics Are Tanking Tesla Sales