ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel just chose a strange hill to die on as he justified the vandalism and arson attacks against Tesla dealers and owners, as well as the vehicles across the country. In addition, Kimmel shared the debunked Nazi hoax once again, with the sarcastic claim, “poor guy.” He said, “You do one, maybe two, Nazi salutes, everybody gets all bent out of shape.”
“Someone lit a bunch of Teslas on fire,” Kimmel said during his show Jimmy Kimmel Live!. “And here’s the thing, I get that people are upset, [but] burning a car might not be great for the environment. I don’t think that’s what they had in mind when they invented the electric car.”
“In Las Vegas yesterday, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at a Tesla service center, at least five Teslas blew up. One from the Molotov, and four because that’s just what Teslas do sometimes,” he joked before continuing, “And no one should be setting fires. You could kill somebody, you could hurt somebody. Elon Musk might not care about other people, but decent Americans should.”
Kimmel doubles down: After playing clips of Tesla arson attacks, Kimmel then accuses of Elon of “trying to drum up sympathy for himself” —
— then explains to Elon why he deserves it:
"When you pull out a chainsaw to celebrate firing thousands of people, they get mad." pic.twitter.com/0QGTHkV6bf
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 20, 2025
Kimmel said, “The world’s richest man, again, has been trying to drum up sympathy for himself lately. His sales are down, his stock is down.”
“Last night he was somber as he went through this with Sean Hannity,” he added, before airing an interview Musk had with Fox News, in which Musk stated, “Tesla is a peaceful company. We’ve never done anything awful. I’ve never done anything awful. I’ve only done productive things. So, I think we just have a deranged — there’s some kind of mental illness thing going on here, because this doesn’t make any sense.”
Kimmel chimed back in, “Well, let me see if I can explain it for you. When you pull out a chainsaw to celebrate firing thousands of people, they get mad.”
“My God, this poor guy, you do one, maybe two, Nazi salutes, everybody gets all bent out of shape,” the talk show host added.