‘Weapon of mass destruction’: US Attorney-General stuns with bonkers Tesla claim
A top White House official has dumbfounded the world after claiming devastating “Weapon of Mass Destruction” attacks are imminent.
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A specialist FBI task force has been established to tackle the clear and present danger of domestic terrorism in the United States.
And White House officials warn WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) attacks are imminent.
“These are not isolated incidents, as you know, and these aren’t vandals,” US Attorney-General Pam Bondi told media on Monday Australian time.
“These are molotov cocktails. That could be a weapon of mass destruction that they’re throwing in Tesla dealerships.”
Pam Bondi, recently appointed as the top legal official in the United States, was echoing the words of President Donald Trump.
“They’re gonna suffer very grave consequences, because they’re really terrorists when you think about it,” he said late last week.
Now, FBI chief Kash Patel has established a task force of 10 special agents drawn from the Counter-terrorism division, including its Domestic Terrorism Operations Section and Weapons of Mass Destruction Unit.
They will be joined by personnel from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
“(Director Patel) has been unequivocally clear: The FBI will be relentless in its mission to protect the American people,” the FBI said in a statement.
“Acts of violence, vandalism, and domestic terrorism — like the recent Tesla attacks — will be pursued with the full force of the law.”
Director Patel later reiterated on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that: “This is domestic terrorism. Those responsible will be pursued, caught, and brought to justice”.
It’s a message being picked up throughout Republican ranks.
John Cornyn took to Capitol Hill’s Senate floor on Thursday Australian time to lambast those attacking the businesses and products belonging to his state’s number one citizen.
“We should not hesitate to call this what it is – domestic terrorism,” the Texas senator insisted.
“Now I wish I could say that this kind of behaviour is an anomaly and has never happened before and is unlikely to happen again, but unfortunately, this has happened before …”
Clear and present danger
The US does not have dedicated domestic terrorism legislation.
Debates spanning decades have failed to settle on a dividing line between constitutionally protected acts of civil disobedience and politically motivated criminal assault.
That could entail isolating prominent lobby groups ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to Antifa.
Instead, the FBI internally defines domestic terrorism as “violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial or environmental nature.”
This includes politically motivated vandalism.
Activists targeting the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, are not the first to fall under this definition.
Members of the group Earth Liberation Front were charged as terrorists during the George W Bush administration in the early 2000s for attacking housing construction sites and SUV dealerships.
President Trump’s Special Government Employee is the public front of the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This body has been controversially firing (and sometimes rehiring) thousands of federal government employees – including road safety investigators, anti-corruption agents, nuclear safety specialists and air traffic controllers.
The New York Post reports that the FBI is “tracking a mass protest called ‘Tesla Takedown’ scheduled for March 29 calling for 500 demonstrations at Tesla showrooms and charging stations”.
Tesla Takedown organisers, including politicians, academics and federal employees, insist that they advocate for peaceful demonstrations only.
A spokesperson told US media outlet CNBC that the “movement has been and always will be nonviolent. They want to scare us away from protesting Musk’s destruction — but standing up for free speech is essential to democracy. We will not be deterred”.
Meanwhile, the New York Post reports the FBI is initially focusing its attention on an “anarchist blog” calling for a fresh wave of attacks against Tesla dealers and infrastructure.
“Elon Musk is destroying our democracy, and he’s using the fortune he built at Tesla to do it,” a Tesla Takedown website states.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
The US Department of Homeland Security defines a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) as a “nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people”.
What exactly constitutes a WMD has been the subject of considerable debate since President George W Bush responded to the September 11 terror attacks against the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC by launching an invasion of Iraq.
In subsequent incidents, even vehicles such as SUVs have been labelled as a “poor man’s weapon of mass destruction”.
Terror attacks involving trucks, vans and cars being driven into crowds have killed dozens of people across Europe, the United States – and Australia.
Attorney-General Bondi reinterpreted the definition this week to include molotov cocktails.
The use of glass bottles filled with fuel and a burning rag for a wick rose to prominence during the 1939 Winter War when Finnish citizens improvised means to confront tanks rolling down their streets and fend off an invasion by Soviet Russia.
It’s since become a prominent feature in popular uprisings against governments worldwide.
And while it does not have the potential to kill and maim on the same scale as a radiological weapon, it can cause indiscriminate harm to groups of people.
The UN classifies molotov cocktails as an improvised weapon favoured by terrorist organisations.
But it does not deem them to have a WMD level of impact.
Many chemical, biological and radiological compounds are strictly controlled to prevent their misappropriation. But policing the possession of components capable of being assembled as a molotov cocktail would be especially difficult for the FBI and ATF.
Flammable alcohol and petroleum products are readily available across the United States, as are glass bottles, cloth rags and cigarette lighters.
Terrorism agendas
The FBI has told US media that it received reports of more than 48 incidents during March involving Tesla cars and trucks, dealerships and recharge stations.
At least seven are under active police investigation.
Three people have so far been arrested for throwing molotov cocktails at empty Tesla car yards. They face between five and 10 years in prison for arson.
If convicted of terrorism, they face life imprisonment, execution – or deportation.
The FBI believes the recent spate of attacks is not a co-ordinated campaign. Instead, they involved “lone offenders”.
President Trump disagrees.
“I think the people that are financing them – they could very well be people I know, people that you write about – but those people are in big trouble,” he stated last week.
Stanford University Hoover Institution historian Victor Davis said the Tesla Takedown movement is a “two-tier system”.
“There’s the frontline soldiers who were burning Teslas and intimidating Tesla owners,” he told the Heritage Foundation think-tank.
“Then there is the sober and judicious Democrat functionaries, the architecture of the progressive movement, who, with a wink and a nod, says, ‘We’ve gotta protest. We’ve gotta organise. But let’s not get violent.’ But in fact, they are greenlighting violence themselves.”
Attorney-General Bondi has taken the allegation one step further.
She’s accused Texas Democratic congresswoman Jasmine Crockett of supporting the terror movement.
“Let’s take him out on my birthday, she says. Yet she turns and says, ‘oh, I’m not calling for violence’. Well, she is an elected public official. And so she needs to tread very carefully,” Ms Bondi told Fox News.
Ms Crockett rejected the allegation.
“I have never promoted violence whatsoever, yet I’ve also never made excuses for violent actors such as the ones on January 6,” Ms Crockett told MSNBC.
“So Pam Bondi, if you have an issue with terrorism, maybe you should talk to your boss about locking back up those guys that he let out that participated in January 6.”
‘We’re going to fight’
Attorney-General Bondi is adamant WMD or other terror attacks won’t cow the White House.
“Nothing will happen to Elon Musk, and we’re going to fight to protect all of the Tesla owners throughout this country,” she insisted.
“And it’s basic safety. Once again, domestic terrorism is going to come to a stop in our country.”
Republican Senator Cornyn, a member of President Trump’s executive-appointed DOGE Caucus, said Mr Musk should be praised for “volunteering” to reform the US federal government instead of “buying an island”.
He accused Tesla Takedown protesters of attempting to put his constituent out of business.
“Most of these Teslas aren’t owned by Elon Musk anymore,” Mr Cornyn states.
“They’ve been sold to private citizens, and yet, they have been the target of a lot of the vandalism and violence that we’ve seen around the country …
“Some have even been spray painted with swastikas. Now, why anyone would think that would be a good idea is beyond me.”
He told the US Senate that violence negates First Amendment protections: “Those are simply crimes. And I hope that much is obvious”.
It’s not the first time Senator Cornyn has spoken out against political violence.
Shortly after MAGA supporters stormed Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, he labelled the attack “horrific and appalling”.
“Those who planned and participated in the violence that day should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” he wrote.
A month later, he voted against legislation proposing a special commission to investigate the alleged insurrection attempt.
Now, he’s comparing the Tesla Takedown to the Black Lives Matter movement sparked by the police killings of unarmed black men Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014.
The death of George Floyd after a police officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes in 2020 triggered demonstrations in cities throughout the US.
“Mr President, we live in a democratic republic, not a banana republic,” Senator Cornyn stated.
“We’re blessed to live in a country where we value and protect the rights of citizens to speak freely. We live in a country with universal suffrage, where citizens can bring their disagreements with their government officials to the ballot box.
“But placing bombs and lighting cars on fire is not an appropriate means of expressing dissenting views in a country like the one we are blessed to live in, we are so much better than that.”
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @jamieseidel.bsky.social
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