An endorsement of Donald Trump by Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk angered some existing owners of vehicles made by the electric vehicle company.
People who are embarrassed to be driving Tesla vehicles after the 2024 election are buying bumper stickers to show their anger of the Trump endorsement.
What Happened: Tesla owners may disagree with Musk many times throughout the year, whether it's his posts on X, views on cryptocurrency or his recent increased political campaigning and funding.
The endorsement of Trump in the 2024 election may have been the final straw for some Tesla owners. While some Tesla owners may decide to sell their vehicle in protest and get a different vehicle, some are likely to keep the vehicle due to Tesla's advanced technology.
Those who love their Tesla vehicles, but are mad at Musk have turned to a solution of plastering anti-Elon Musk bumper stickers on their vehicle.
Matthew Hiller of Hawaii has a sticker business called Mad Puffer Stickers on Etsy ETSY that has been among the places where Tesla owners are turning after the election.
Hiller shared with Heatmap that the sticker business is his side hustle to a full-time job at an aquarium. As a fan of making fish stickers and other designs, Hiller used his personal experience of wanting to buy a Tesla in early 2023, but not agreeing with everything Musk stood for.
"When he bought Twitter, he started extreme censoring of information, taking verification marks off The New York Times and things like that to sow discontent, disinformation, and push his agenda. And it was ugly," Hiller said.
Hiller realized that there were likely many people who were now embarrassed to be driving their Teslas around.
"So I made the fist sticker, which said, ‘I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy.'"
Hiller printed up a small run and after a slow initial time to see some sales, the stickers went viral a couple of times. Eventually Hiller was selling five to seven stickers a day and some days he would sell 50 because of a picture going viral.
"And now, at this point, it's gone insane."
Hiller told Heatmap his sales have been "unbelievable" since the 2024 election.
After the election, Hiller said he sold between 250 and 300 in one day and said the sales have "been steady ever since."
"I can barely keep up."
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The sticker entrepreneur said he can barely keep up with the momentum and comes home from the aquarium to start packing stickers until night.
Hiller estimates that he's sold around 10,000 stickers since he started on Etsy and he is currently selling around 180 total stickers per day, a total that doesn't just include anti-Elon Musk stickers.
The most popular sticker sold by Hiller is the "I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy," which he said is by far the top seller.
Along with being a popular seller on Etsy, the anti-Musk bumper stickers are also among the top sellers on Amazon with Hiller's most popular design ranked among the top five bumper stickers on the e-commerce site, sometimes hitting number one in the category.
"That's insane. People hate Elon more than they love Trump or Kamala?" Hiller added.
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