Just an Fyi, because Chick-fil-A is privately held, even though the company does not donate money to anti-LGBT initiatives, the owners who get the profits directly turn around and send that money to anti-LGBT initiatives, not the corporation. So as someone in the LGBT community if I go and buy food there, the money does go directly towards anti-LGBT initiatives. I don’t want to be personally complicit in doing that to myself or my community.
That being said, I understand where you’re coming from regarding the Tesla. And if it were true that Chick-fil-A or their owners weren’t doing that anymore I fully see your point there as well. I’ve come to the place where I don’t get mad at others for eating at Chick-fil-A but that’s not something I can allow myself.
My pocketbook has power and I appreciate the people who are boycotting buying Teslas because it’s made an impact on musk as he steps back from DOGE. I don’t appreciate people who are vandalizing dealers or cars… that’s a waste of effort because I don’t know the motives of those who buy the cars other than they clearly care about the environment which I have to applaud.
Correct. The take down Tesla movement is designed to put Tesla out of business, thus punishing Musk for his cruel slash and burn tactics and the DOGE intrusion into our government, our pocket books and our lives. A badly diminished Musk is a win for America.
I'd add that CFA are franchises mostly, too. The DTLA store is well run with the owner being in there every day. Like a lot of DTLA, the store has security in case someone gets rowdy. Despite area issues with homeless folks, she didn't board up and depart because of the pandemic. It looks like the store is doing fine, and it's nice to have in the neighborhood.
Defaced? No. You are fortunate they tape it on your car. That is what I would call a polite protest. Chick-fil-A and others - my polite protest is to not spend my monies in these places. My money, my spending.
Ya….calling that “defacing" is pretty snowflake. In fact, it's a rather polite (dare I say “Canadian”) way of acknowledging the obvious fact you purchased it before Elon went crackers, mindful of NOT defacing your car. Really?
Yeah, when I read "defaced," I was envisioning spray paint, not a rainbow-edged memo pad.
I also do not spend my money at Chik-Fil-A, Target, Hobby Lobby, and Amazon. I used to spend quite a bit of money at Target and Amazon, but no more—and I've always thought Chik-Fil-A was overrated as hell, even before they were homophobic.
My sentiments exactly! Never bought anything at CFA or Hobby Lobby due to their extremely conservative stances, and I stopped buying at Target and Amazon. Haven’t missed either one.
I have had an Ioniq 5 for two years now and it is an A+ car. The only thing I would really complain about is that it has a weirdly large turning radius for its size.
First off, Musk did NOT found Tesla. It's like when people claim that Steve Jobs invented the smartphone which is also wrong. That was IBM back in the early 1990s. The original founders of Tesla are Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk is an early investor in Tesla, owns a controlling interest in the company and is the CEO of Tesla.
This is NOT about politics, it is about Elon Musk and he is viewed now by people as a Nazi and asshole. It is no different than Henry Ford who was an antisemite and used gangster tactics to enforce his view of proper family values with his workers back in the day. Although, back in those days, everyday people accepted those facts about Ford. However, even then, there were people in the know that would never own a Ford because of his views.
Thanks to Elon Musk, I will never, ever own a Tesla automobile.
Our family does its best to avoid Chik-Fil-A because of their conservative positions. Same with Hobby Lobby. We do our best to avoid Walmart because they destroyed small merchants in small towns as their business growth strategy.
It all comes down to if you really want to take a position and live your convictions. If you don't, that is fine, but then do not whine on Substack when your car gets a tag on it (it could be worse, someone could have keyed it).
Like it or not, your choices say that you support an organization and, by association, that organization's political, ethical and moral views and tactics.
There is a difference between Chik filer and Hobby Lobby
As far as I know none of children filets profit go to political causes
Hobby lobby got special treatment from the Supreme Court. They are not an LLC or privately owned. They are a corporation. If you want to be treated as a former give up the latter and the benefits
“Everything is politics” as they say. The only question is whether the politics are meaningful enough to you to affect your behavior. You may think that you’re just having a delicious chicken sandwich, but an LGBTQ person may think that it’s better to get that sandwich elsewhere.
Alas, this is the "woke" BS that has destroyed the democratic party. You can't be indifferent about anything, you have to care and be earnest about every tiny injustice in the world or you are a x-phobe. Voting with your pocketbook means that those who have the most money have the most votes. Most likely that's not you or your friends, but rather people like Musk, the Cathay family, the Waltons and Bezoses. You're fooling yourself if you think Chris not eating a chicken sandwich will do anything to help the suffering of LGBTQ people.
I think the "woke" BS is people posting on social media about how much something offends them, then turning around and spending money on Chick-fil-a or buying a Tesla. The major issue with "woke" is the hypocrisy that it encourages.
Money is a type of power. We can be thoughtful about how we spend our money. In some cases, it will matter very little, like Chick-fil-a. In other cases, it will have a great impact, like it is having with Tesla.
The thing about Chris, is that he has a platform that actually talks about politics. He could stand to be a little less indifferent, and maybe a little more reflective.
Well, it may not mean that you hate gay people, but it definitely means that you are indifferent to their suffering and that you are willing to continue to support someone who actively contributes to organizations that try to make them suffer. Same difference.
OMG! that is so funny. Thanks for sharing, i needed the laugh. I am not gay, work at a state University and we have been forced to remove all "symbols" that support blah, blah, blah. you know, anything that hints at support for any marginalized group. It makes me feel so sad to be at work in this environment, it makes me sad to have to pay attention to which corporations are "on my side", but i do pay attention to this. I appreciate someone bringing some humor to our current situation. woohoo
But politics is consuming us! Donald Trump is using everything he can to divide us and stepping on every controversial nerve he can find to add to his own legacy of cruelty and fear. Best to step away from them and him whenever we can--and vote anti MAGA whenever we can.
I’m sorry, Chris, I can only agree up to a point. I could never buy a Tesla, it’s just too “Musk”. It gives me the chills just to think about driving around in one. Granted, I am a “lifer” with Prius (on my fourth one). I would feel too weird in a Tesla and always worried that someone might deface it.
Fortunately I’m also a vegetarian so no worries about going to Chick-Fil-A. Even so, I just can’t purchase from them or Hobby Lobby. I have to have some lines I don’t cross, even if they seem random or silly. Maybe that’s just me 🤷♀️
Musk, with his ego, has made sure to tie the Tesla brand to him so tightly that it cannot be separated. That's by design -- Musk has always wanted people to think of HIM and only him when Tesla is mentioned. That worked out for Tesla for some time -- and then it didn't.
Would I leave a note like this on someone's car? No. But I also don't think it's the worst note -- in fact, it's not insulting you. It's simply reminding people who Musk is. If I owned a Tesla and selling it wasn't an option, I'd probably simply get a nicer-looking "Musk is a Nazi" bumper sticker than this one.
This is a good point. I like to remind people whenever necessary that if we make a negative but unnecessary connection between two things, it might be because one or both of those things present it that way. Think attributing all the federal government dismantling action the administration is taking to DOGE. No, it's not literally true that everything the administration does is attributable to those who self-identify as part of DOGE, but it's the administration that is making that hazy, not us. Here, if people make Teslas and politics personal to Musk, it's because he made both things personal himself.
I don't think Chris really argues here about how the whole thing reflects back to Musk, though, just the individual owner.
Chris, please don’t be naive. Because money basically buys political speech (and politicians), everything that money touches IS politics. HOW you spend is deeply tied to politics.
And Musk, if he isn’t a Nazi, is certainly Nazi-adjacent.
There's a another side to this. It is how dumb and stupid Elon is. The worlds richest man made the biggest miscalculation any business guy ever made.
You hit on it briefly. Before Elon, MAGA was 1000% against anything even remotely environmentally safe or tilted towards removing carbon emissions. Let's face it, MAGA wants coal and gas and oil everywhere.
Sidebar, most of MAGA are huge hunters and outdoors folks. Why they want degradation of the very outdoors they use is beyond me. But nobody is ever going to send MAGA to Harvard, are they? ( so sorry if you infer that I am calling them stupid)
So we got Elon Musk becoming the world's richest (and strangest) man by selling electric cars. Here's the business part.
He totally blasts the very customers who made him rich. Dumb and dumber. Completely disregarded the CUSTOMERS who brought him to the dance. He becomes a pariah to the fine folks who have fought against MAGA and the need for cleaner energy.
Totally self-imposed shot himself right in the balls.
I respectfully disagree Chis, Elon is definitely at the very least a Nazi sympathizer. If I could , I wouldn’t use Amazon, or go to Lowe’s, Target or any of the businesses I do go to if it wasn’t so damm inconvenient. I’ve always believed in voting with your dollars.
But haven't we always been told that money talks? Those of us who aren't millionaires or billionaires and can't just buy a politician have relatively few means of expressing our displeasure at what is happening. (And don't tell me to vote. I do - every single time. And I in BRIGHT RED Ohio, I feel like I'm shouting into a hurricane.)
I agree: The note on your car IS juvenile - but I get why people are mad.
I would prefer that corporations stay out of espousing their political views and it works both ways. Ask Bud Light how that worked out. Before I retired, I owned a small insurance agency but did not allow political posters from either candidate even when one was a friend that I agreed with. I doubt vandalizing Teslas is going to hurt one of the richest men in the world or Chik-Fil-A will be put out of business because their late founders were evangelical Christians. Teslas were wildly popular with the greenie liberals until they weren't. Don't buy one because you don't like Musk but vandalizing their cars (probably only hurting the liberal who owns it) or burning down a dealership certainly crosses the line of simple protest. Don't buy one if you don't like the owner or don't buy from Penzy's spices because the owners are far left. Your choice, but violence should not be tolerated from either side.
His X feed (and media encounters) is full of HATE FILLED rhetoric, almost all directed at “liberals” and “wokeness” (which is never actually defined)
Such a quaint idea that “Not everything has to be political” but it is. Scumbags like Elon Musk ensure that everything IS “political”.
This type of “protest” is nothing new, it just was put in Chris’s face because it happened to him.
From the aggrieved “Christians” who were appalled when John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus (he was right) and proceeded to burn their albums in huge bonfires, and the death threats got so serious they contributed to the Beatles ending their touring career.
The career of Colin Kaepernick was destroyed because he had the temerity to respectfully go on one knee during the national anthem.
To Kid Rock (and a lot other) posting videos using AR-15’s to shoot up a bunch of Bud Light’s to protest Dylan Mulvaney doing a benign promoting of the beer.
Target was targeted (no pun intended) with some angry anti-gay maniacs destroying store displays for their long standing “Pride collection” and harassing employees.
So sure, listening to the Beatles, enjoying NFL football, drinking Bud Light and shopping at Target should not be “political” but it sure seems to me that most of this has come from the political right.
BTW…it is a stretch to say your Tesla was “defaced” via a sign taped to it.
In 2018 a 200-year-old African American Historical site defaced with spray paint with the words “N-----r Leave” or 2 right wingers smearing black paint over a Black Lives Matter mural on the side of a building on NYC’s Fifth Ave (and many others around the country) are examples of “defacing”.
Just an Fyi, because Chick-fil-A is privately held, even though the company does not donate money to anti-LGBT initiatives, the owners who get the profits directly turn around and send that money to anti-LGBT initiatives, not the corporation. So as someone in the LGBT community if I go and buy food there, the money does go directly towards anti-LGBT initiatives. I don’t want to be personally complicit in doing that to myself or my community.
That being said, I understand where you’re coming from regarding the Tesla. And if it were true that Chick-fil-A or their owners weren’t doing that anymore I fully see your point there as well. I’ve come to the place where I don’t get mad at others for eating at Chick-fil-A but that’s not something I can allow myself.
My pocketbook has power and I appreciate the people who are boycotting buying Teslas because it’s made an impact on musk as he steps back from DOGE. I don’t appreciate people who are vandalizing dealers or cars… that’s a waste of effort because I don’t know the motives of those who buy the cars other than they clearly care about the environment which I have to applaud.
Correct. The take down Tesla movement is designed to put Tesla out of business, thus punishing Musk for his cruel slash and burn tactics and the DOGE intrusion into our government, our pocket books and our lives. A badly diminished Musk is a win for America.
Hi, Robyn!
Hey Nance!! Xo
I'd add that CFA are franchises mostly, too. The DTLA store is well run with the owner being in there every day. Like a lot of DTLA, the store has security in case someone gets rowdy. Despite area issues with homeless folks, she didn't board up and depart because of the pandemic. It looks like the store is doing fine, and it's nice to have in the neighborhood.
A great point as well…franchise owners are trying to do the right thing even if the Cathay family is not.
I looked into owning a Chick-fil-a since the buy in is absurdly cheap
Defaced? No. You are fortunate they tape it on your car. That is what I would call a polite protest. Chick-fil-A and others - my polite protest is to not spend my monies in these places. My money, my spending.
I was just thinking that. It was a very polite protest. No damage was done to the paint.
Ya….calling that “defacing" is pretty snowflake. In fact, it's a rather polite (dare I say “Canadian”) way of acknowledging the obvious fact you purchased it before Elon went crackers, mindful of NOT defacing your car. Really?
Yeah, when I read "defaced," I was envisioning spray paint, not a rainbow-edged memo pad.
I also do not spend my money at Chik-Fil-A, Target, Hobby Lobby, and Amazon. I used to spend quite a bit of money at Target and Amazon, but no more—and I've always thought Chik-Fil-A was overrated as hell, even before they were homophobic.
My sentiments exactly! Never bought anything at CFA or Hobby Lobby due to their extremely conservative stances, and I stopped buying at Target and Amazon. Haven’t missed either one.
I stopped going to Publix here in Flori-duh after finding out the owners gave in support of the Jan 6 rioters. It figure
Yeah I was wondering when he was going to share how his car was defaced
KIA makes a better EV and Popeye's makes a better chicken sandwich. Problem solved 😌
My neighbors Hyundai Ioniq 5 uses buttons still. A vast improvement over using those $#%^@$%#$*( touchscreens for doing the simplest action.
I really like it and if I could afford it, I'd get one.
I own an EV6 and love it. Yes, touchscreens, but still a few tactile buttons!
I have had an Ioniq 5 for two years now and it is an A+ car. The only thing I would really complain about is that it has a weirdly large turning radius for its size.
I had a 2022 Kia EV 6 and just traded it in for a new 2025 EV6…it’s an awesome and beautiful machine!
Gosh, I'd have a Popeye's chicken sandwich about now...
That someone who makes his living discussing politics denies politics are a part of much of what we do is absurd.
I am not denying it! I am saying it doesn't HAVE to be.
Chris,
Which part of politics does not affect your life on a daily basis?
But I believe it does. The personal is political for me.
First off, Musk did NOT found Tesla. It's like when people claim that Steve Jobs invented the smartphone which is also wrong. That was IBM back in the early 1990s. The original founders of Tesla are Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk is an early investor in Tesla, owns a controlling interest in the company and is the CEO of Tesla.
This is NOT about politics, it is about Elon Musk and he is viewed now by people as a Nazi and asshole. It is no different than Henry Ford who was an antisemite and used gangster tactics to enforce his view of proper family values with his workers back in the day. Although, back in those days, everyday people accepted those facts about Ford. However, even then, there were people in the know that would never own a Ford because of his views.
Thanks to Elon Musk, I will never, ever own a Tesla automobile.
Our family does its best to avoid Chik-Fil-A because of their conservative positions. Same with Hobby Lobby. We do our best to avoid Walmart because they destroyed small merchants in small towns as their business growth strategy.
It all comes down to if you really want to take a position and live your convictions. If you don't, that is fine, but then do not whine on Substack when your car gets a tag on it (it could be worse, someone could have keyed it).
Like it or not, your choices say that you support an organization and, by association, that organization's political, ethical and moral views and tactics.
There is a difference between Chik filer and Hobby Lobby
As far as I know none of children filets profit go to political causes
Hobby lobby got special treatment from the Supreme Court. They are not an LLC or privately owned. They are a corporation. If you want to be treated as a former give up the latter and the benefits
I'm sorry, but taping a message to your car is defacing it? Seriously?
Then when some idiot scratches my car with a shopping cart in a market parking lot, I guess they totaled my car?
“Everything is politics” as they say. The only question is whether the politics are meaningful enough to you to affect your behavior. You may think that you’re just having a delicious chicken sandwich, but an LGBTQ person may think that it’s better to get that sandwich elsewhere.
Which is their right! But all I ask is that my choice to eat the sandwich NOT be taken as a sign I hate gay people. I do not.
As Cassie says below, it is your indifference that is most damning. It is part of what Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil.”
Alas, this is the "woke" BS that has destroyed the democratic party. You can't be indifferent about anything, you have to care and be earnest about every tiny injustice in the world or you are a x-phobe. Voting with your pocketbook means that those who have the most money have the most votes. Most likely that's not you or your friends, but rather people like Musk, the Cathay family, the Waltons and Bezoses. You're fooling yourself if you think Chris not eating a chicken sandwich will do anything to help the suffering of LGBTQ people.
I think the "woke" BS is people posting on social media about how much something offends them, then turning around and spending money on Chick-fil-a or buying a Tesla. The major issue with "woke" is the hypocrisy that it encourages.
Money is a type of power. We can be thoughtful about how we spend our money. In some cases, it will matter very little, like Chick-fil-a. In other cases, it will have a great impact, like it is having with Tesla.
The thing about Chris, is that he has a platform that actually talks about politics. He could stand to be a little less indifferent, and maybe a little more reflective.
Well, it may not mean that you hate gay people, but it definitely means that you are indifferent to their suffering and that you are willing to continue to support someone who actively contributes to organizations that try to make them suffer. Same difference.
Popeye's is superior, mate. And you avoid the CFA landmine entirely.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2189459357825549
I side with Fortune Feimster on this one
OMG! that is so funny. Thanks for sharing, i needed the laugh. I am not gay, work at a state University and we have been forced to remove all "symbols" that support blah, blah, blah. you know, anything that hints at support for any marginalized group. It makes me feel so sad to be at work in this environment, it makes me sad to have to pay attention to which corporations are "on my side", but i do pay attention to this. I appreciate someone bringing some humor to our current situation. woohoo
No it’s not! Please folks get a life! Find a hobby, don’t let something stupid like politics consume you…. Good grief
But politics is consuming us! Donald Trump is using everything he can to divide us and stepping on every controversial nerve he can find to add to his own legacy of cruelty and fear. Best to step away from them and him whenever we can--and vote anti MAGA whenever we can.
How nice to be so privileged.
You must be someone whose life is literally not under threat from this regime ... but you know what?
Your life, liberty, and / or property still might be soon, because this is happening, as of today
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/technology/trump-palantir-data-americans.html
That's funny - that would never occur to me
I’m sorry, Chris, I can only agree up to a point. I could never buy a Tesla, it’s just too “Musk”. It gives me the chills just to think about driving around in one. Granted, I am a “lifer” with Prius (on my fourth one). I would feel too weird in a Tesla and always worried that someone might deface it.
Fortunately I’m also a vegetarian so no worries about going to Chick-Fil-A. Even so, I just can’t purchase from them or Hobby Lobby. I have to have some lines I don’t cross, even if they seem random or silly. Maybe that’s just me 🤷♀️
Musk, with his ego, has made sure to tie the Tesla brand to him so tightly that it cannot be separated. That's by design -- Musk has always wanted people to think of HIM and only him when Tesla is mentioned. That worked out for Tesla for some time -- and then it didn't.
Would I leave a note like this on someone's car? No. But I also don't think it's the worst note -- in fact, it's not insulting you. It's simply reminding people who Musk is. If I owned a Tesla and selling it wasn't an option, I'd probably simply get a nicer-looking "Musk is a Nazi" bumper sticker than this one.
This is a good point. I like to remind people whenever necessary that if we make a negative but unnecessary connection between two things, it might be because one or both of those things present it that way. Think attributing all the federal government dismantling action the administration is taking to DOGE. No, it's not literally true that everything the administration does is attributable to those who self-identify as part of DOGE, but it's the administration that is making that hazy, not us. Here, if people make Teslas and politics personal to Musk, it's because he made both things personal himself.
I don't think Chris really argues here about how the whole thing reflects back to Musk, though, just the individual owner.
Your car wasn't defaced. Someone just left a true and removable comment on it. Get over yourself.
He never has, and he never will
Chris, please don’t be naive. Because money basically buys political speech (and politicians), everything that money touches IS politics. HOW you spend is deeply tied to politics.
And Musk, if he isn’t a Nazi, is certainly Nazi-adjacent.
There's a another side to this. It is how dumb and stupid Elon is. The worlds richest man made the biggest miscalculation any business guy ever made.
You hit on it briefly. Before Elon, MAGA was 1000% against anything even remotely environmentally safe or tilted towards removing carbon emissions. Let's face it, MAGA wants coal and gas and oil everywhere.
Sidebar, most of MAGA are huge hunters and outdoors folks. Why they want degradation of the very outdoors they use is beyond me. But nobody is ever going to send MAGA to Harvard, are they? ( so sorry if you infer that I am calling them stupid)
So we got Elon Musk becoming the world's richest (and strangest) man by selling electric cars. Here's the business part.
He totally blasts the very customers who made him rich. Dumb and dumber. Completely disregarded the CUSTOMERS who brought him to the dance. He becomes a pariah to the fine folks who have fought against MAGA and the need for cleaner energy.
Totally self-imposed shot himself right in the balls.
Jerk.
I respectfully disagree Chis, Elon is definitely at the very least a Nazi sympathizer. If I could , I wouldn’t use Amazon, or go to Lowe’s, Target or any of the businesses I do go to if it wasn’t so damm inconvenient. I’ve always believed in voting with your dollars.
But haven't we always been told that money talks? Those of us who aren't millionaires or billionaires and can't just buy a politician have relatively few means of expressing our displeasure at what is happening. (And don't tell me to vote. I do - every single time. And I in BRIGHT RED Ohio, I feel like I'm shouting into a hurricane.)
I agree: The note on your car IS juvenile - but I get why people are mad.
I would prefer that corporations stay out of espousing their political views and it works both ways. Ask Bud Light how that worked out. Before I retired, I owned a small insurance agency but did not allow political posters from either candidate even when one was a friend that I agreed with. I doubt vandalizing Teslas is going to hurt one of the richest men in the world or Chik-Fil-A will be put out of business because their late founders were evangelical Christians. Teslas were wildly popular with the greenie liberals until they weren't. Don't buy one because you don't like Musk but vandalizing their cars (probably only hurting the liberal who owns it) or burning down a dealership certainly crosses the line of simple protest. Don't buy one if you don't like the owner or don't buy from Penzy's spices because the owners are far left. Your choice, but violence should not be tolerated from either side.
100%. While I follow politics, it can’t control your life & well being. Sorry this happened to you and yes, Chik-fil-a is delicious!
Elon Musk has reaped what he sowed.
His X feed (and media encounters) is full of HATE FILLED rhetoric, almost all directed at “liberals” and “wokeness” (which is never actually defined)
Such a quaint idea that “Not everything has to be political” but it is. Scumbags like Elon Musk ensure that everything IS “political”.
This type of “protest” is nothing new, it just was put in Chris’s face because it happened to him.
From the aggrieved “Christians” who were appalled when John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus (he was right) and proceeded to burn their albums in huge bonfires, and the death threats got so serious they contributed to the Beatles ending their touring career.
The career of Colin Kaepernick was destroyed because he had the temerity to respectfully go on one knee during the national anthem.
To Kid Rock (and a lot other) posting videos using AR-15’s to shoot up a bunch of Bud Light’s to protest Dylan Mulvaney doing a benign promoting of the beer.
Target was targeted (no pun intended) with some angry anti-gay maniacs destroying store displays for their long standing “Pride collection” and harassing employees.
So sure, listening to the Beatles, enjoying NFL football, drinking Bud Light and shopping at Target should not be “political” but it sure seems to me that most of this has come from the political right.
BTW…it is a stretch to say your Tesla was “defaced” via a sign taped to it.
In 2018 a 200-year-old African American Historical site defaced with spray paint with the words “N-----r Leave” or 2 right wingers smearing black paint over a Black Lives Matter mural on the side of a building on NYC’s Fifth Ave (and many others around the country) are examples of “defacing”.