Newly Revealed Photos Tar Tesla With The Epstein Brush

File this one under H for He Who Lives In a Glass House. Just a few weeks ago Tesla CEO Elon Musk was busy hurling taunts at US President Donald Trump on social media over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal instead of doing something — anything — to stop his company’s EV sales from tanking. Now it’s Musk who has some ‘splaining to do, as The New York Times has gotten its hands on a cache of buddy-buddy photos on display at Epstein’s lavish Manhattan townhouse, including one featuring Musk himself.

Tesla Needs A New Scandal Like A Hole In The Head

To be clear, Musk is just one of numerous celebs and other noteworthy persons who have appeared with Epstein in photographs over the years, and one snapshot does not make a relationship. Still, with its EV sales falling off a cliff in the US, Europe, and elsewhere, the last thing Tesla needs is another reminder of the steaming hot Epstein scandal. The New York Times broke the news about the Epstein photo collection earlier this week, with CNN and MSNBC among the news organizations producing video followups that name-check Musk.

Adding to the hurt, Musk himself has been known to use the slangy “pedo guy” insult on occasion, and now he surfaces in a photograph with a deceased but still notorious abuser of under-aged girls.

Another Musk-related sex scandal of sorts also arose earlier this week, when tech reporters discovered that the “spicy” option on Musk’s new xAI Grok Imagine feature will happily create deepfake videos of female celebrities on command (bad!), and take off their clothes without a command (also bad!). That’s on top of last month’s news, in which Musk announced that new anime-style AI “companions” are available to premium Grok subscribers. The lineup features a waiflike female character who speaks in the hushed tones of an excited nine-year-old while rocking a black boudoir goth getup.

Biting The Hand That Feeds You

Tesla’s recent misfortune in the sales department is a relatively new development that tracks closely with Musk transformation from a supporter of government handouts to a terrorist-level wrecker of public resources.

His company’s rise to the #1 slot in global EV sales is well documented, but the history-making trajectory almost didn’t happen. Tesla Motors was a newly launched California carmaker churning out a small volume of pricey two-seaters for luxury sports car enthusiasts when the 2008 financial crash hit the global auto industry like a ton of bricks. US taxpayers sprang to the rescue, handing Musk a lifeline in the form of a $465 million loan guarantee, issued by the US Department of Energy in 2009.

The terms of the loan guarantee stipulated two things: Make EVs more affordable, and increase production. It didn’t say anything about stabbing US taxpayers in the back, but that’s what happened earlier this year when Trump designated Musk to lay waste to the federal government, including physical buildings and other resources as well as personnel. According to minority reports and memos produced by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the US Senate, Musk’s “DOGE” office has already cost taxpayers $21.7 billion, and counting.

How Not To Stop The Bleeding

Flipping off US car buyers is not normal behavior for the CEO of a leading US auto manufacturer, but why stop at the US? Over and above rising competition from other EV makers, Musk’s affiliation with Trump and his posture as a far right foreign affairs influencer can also be credited with pushing Tesla sales down the drain in Europe, bigly.

Perhaps the loud thump of falling numbers got through to Musk. Earlier this summer he indicated that he would like to separate himself and his cars from the Trump brand. He even went so far as to float the idea of launching new political party to challenge both Republican and Democratic power brokers under the name “America Party.”

Those looking for a hidden meaning behind the name “America” will not be disappointed. Word games are a longrunning theme in Muskworld, from the EV models that spell out “S3XY” to the obsession with the letter X and the number combination 420.

Writing for the Washington Monthly on August 7, constitutional scholar and law professor Paul Finkelman takes note of the obvious: The America Party name is the latest iteration of a long, consistent thread of similarly named third parties and other political organizations in the US, all formed with similar intent.

“If Musk succeeds at creating a political organization on a larger scale, he will be the sixth ‘American’ party with some national visibility,” Finkelman notes, tracing the appearance of the first “American Party” all the way back to 1842. A second phase of the American Party appeared in the 1850s with to greater effect, though it was also short-lived. The American Protective Association followed in the 1880s and the America First Committee came along in 1940, only to be replaced by the America First Party in 1943.

The most recent instance bubbled up in 1968, when the unashamedly racist Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, made a run for the White House under the banner of the American Independent Party. Among other declarations, Wallace is known for declaring “segregation now…segregation tomorrow…segregation forever” at his inauguration in 1963.

Wallace and AIP were not outliers among the five America-themed parties listed by Finkelman. “All of them have three things in common. They were all anti-immigrant and/or anti-Black parties rooted in religious bigotry and racism. They were all short-lived. And they all failed to have much impact on any elections,” he concludes.

Cybertrucks Used For Target Practice

So much for that. Musk’s America Party stirred up little news after he first mentioned it, and that is just as well. With the brand reputation of Tesla rapidly approaching Humpty Dumpty status, none other than the US Air Force also chipped in its two cents this week. On August 7, Stars and Stripes reported that the Air Force is planning to buy two Cybertrucks to use for target practice.

“Federal contracting documents posted online show the trucks as part of a larger buy of 33 vehicles that will be sent to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to support U.S. Special Operations Command,” Stars and Stripes reporter Lara Kote observed.

Before you point and laugh, Cybertrucks are just two of 33 vehicles slated for destruction by precision guided missiles for target practice at White Sands. The idea is to reflect real world conditions, meaning any vehicles that bad actors might easily get their hands on.

Oh, never mind. You might as well point and laugh. Everybody else is. Within hours of Kote’s report, “Cybertruck target practice” was all over the Intertubes. Just what Tesla needs…

Photo: Tesla Cybertruck via CleanTechnica archive (credit: Carolyn Fortuna).