London to go dark for 20th anniversary of Earth Hour
London advertising landmarks including Piccadilly Lights and BFI IMAX will once again switch off for an hour this weekend to symbolise a moment of global unity for nature restoration
A range of OOH displays by activist groups have been criticising Elon Musk and his Tesla car brand, with slogans including “Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds”
The actions of billionaire owner of Tesla and X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk, have been likened to fascism in an out-of-home (OOH) project from a UK activist group.
During the inauguration celebrations of American president Donald Trump, Musk twice gave a one-armed salute akin to the ‘Sieg Heil’ salute of the Nazi Party.
Supporters later claimed that the gesture was a ‘Roman salute’, with Musk saying on his self-owned social media platform, X: “The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired."
In response, an OOH poster mocking Musk and Tesla has appeared in Bethnal Green, East London, with the slogan: “Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,” along with a picture of Musk saluting from the rally.
In the same billboard, Musk’s Tesla vehicles are dubbed “The Swasticar,” with people encouraged to stop purchasing the luxury electric vehicle brand.
The campaign is the work of a UK activist group called ‘Everyone Hates Elon’. A TikTok video the organisation posted of a man in high-vis clothing erecting the sign has so far garnered more than one million likes and nine million views.
Everyone Hates Elon also installed a sign on a London underground train, with the photo of Musk saluting alongside a graph representing Tesla’s falling stock price. A caption reads: “Hate doesn’t sell. Just ask Tesla.”
Between December 2024 and February 2025, the stock price of Tesla has fallen from a high of $479.86 (£379.39) to a low of $281.95 (£222.92), although this is still higher than the low of $142.05 (£110.08) reached in April of 2024.
The organisation has also reportedly stuck hundreds of stickers on Tesla cars across London that read: “Don’t buy a swasticar”.
Everyone Hates Elon has a fundraising page where proceeds go to the costs of campaigning against Musk. On the page, the group claims that Musk is promoting far-right politics in Europe. As of the date of publication, the campaign has raised over £14,200.
The group’s statement about the fundraiser reads: “Not happy with fuelling the far-right in the USA, Elon Musk is now doing the same in Europe.
“We can’t let the richest man in the world poison our politics. While nurses use food banks, his wealth grew by $200bn last year. Everyone Hates Elon is doing actions holding Elon to account. All proceeds will go directly towards the costs of our campaigning.”
The activist group, Led By Donkeys, launched a similar campaign last week, projecting an image of Musk giving the salute on the outside of the Tesla ‘Gigafactory’ in Berlin. An additional word has been projected next to the Tesla logo, so that it now reads: “Heil Tesla”.
An unverified video shared on X earlier this month also appears to show a Tesla totem sign in Birmingham edited to read: “Now Powered with Small D*ck Energy”.
