Philly Democratic PAC smashes (their own) Tesla to protest Musk and DOGE

FUBAR PAC offered a sledgehammer, a wrench, and “Chuck Schumer pool noodle” to participants angry with the Trump administration and GOP’s funding cuts.

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On Wednesday night, a group of angry Democrats, and Philly Elmo, took out their frustrations with the Department of Government Efficiency and its figurehead Elon Musk by destroying a 2023 Tesla Model Y in a rage room in Holmesburg.

The protest was organized and hosted by FUBAR PAC, a veteran-led Democratic political group based out of Fishtown. (We’ll let you Google what FUBAR stands for if you don’t already know.)

The closed event included friends, family and speakers invited by the group’s executive director and founder, Jack Inacker.

“Elon wants to keep you poor, he wants to keep you sick and he wants to keep you silent. And all so that he can take more for himself,” Inaker, a 42-year-old former Air Force nuclear weapons specialist, said during his event speech, standing in front of a gold-painted trash can.

FUBAR PAC’s executive director and founder Jack Inacker speaks before taking a sledgehammer to a 2023 Tesla Model Y, in protest of the Department of Government Efficiency and its leader, Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn)

The event’s three other speakers included political activists and people whose work has been affected by the federal funding cuts made by DOGE. After every speaker was done, they selected a gold-painted tool and took several whacks at the car. The crowd was encouraged to join chants cursing Musk. Oddly, a few “Go Birds” were chanted before or after the destruction.

After all the speeches were done, Inacker welcomed out the Philly Elmo and the Positive Movement Entertainment Drumline to perform while the group grabbed their instruments of destruction and began to thwack, gouge, smash and rip apart the vehicle. Even Elmo got a few shots in with a sledgehammer. 

Participants trash and dismantle a 2023 Tesla Model Y, in FUBAR PAC’s protest of the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn)

At certain points, the percussive blows on the car’s body synched up perfectly with the drum line’s rhythm.

When it was all over, the group stood exhausted but triumphant around the torn-up car and the pieces strewn around it.

“I knew it would feel good,” one participant said, “but that felt great.”

FUBAR PAC didn’t just grab someone’s Tesla off the street, and Inacker made it very clear that the group condemns damaging other people’s property, including Teslas. He said that the car was purchased from a junkyard in New York and never had a hope of being roadworthy again.

For the safety of the smashers, the motors, batteries and other potentially hazardous parts were removed by mechanics. Inacker said that those parts would later be upcycled into EV conversions for classic cars, and that the money left over from the 

Philly Rage, where the event was taking place, gave everyone participating face shields, gloves and jumpsuits for protection. Though car wrecking isn’t out of the norm for the venue, it was their first Tesla, and their first political event.

The 2023 Tesla Model Y before and after the Democrat political group destroyed it. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn)

The event was in some ways a demonstration of how Musk generally and Tesla’s vehicles in particular have proved a unique and galvanizing symbol of political anger and resistance during President Trump’s second administration. 

It started when Musk donated more than $280 million to then-presidential candidate  Trump in the 2024 election cycle, then grew after he took on a role as an advisor to the president and a leader of the newly formed DOGE office, which has slashed and downsized federal funding and agencies, without congressional approval.

There have been nationwide protests at Tesla dealerships in 2025, sometimes involving vandalism. Musk’s role in government has also been blamed for tanking Tesla sales.

He is certainly a focal point for Inacker and his PAC.

FUBAR PAC’s executive director and founder Jack Inacker leads a group destroying a 2023 Tesla Model Y, in protest of the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn)

“Our PAC is founded on unelecting Elon and unrigging Congress in order to unscrew America,” Inacker said. “So what we wanted to see was unelected billionaires stop hijacking our federal government. The best way that we can do that is have Congress actually use their Article 1 powers to control the power of the purse.”

The White House has said that DOGE has been effective in reducing government spending to help reduce the federal budget deficit, and that the billionaire’s role would be reduced over time, as he shifts his focus back to his companies. The executive order that created DOGE gave the department a deadline of July 4, and Musk’s role as a special government employee allows him to serve for only 130 days in office, with his stint running out at the end of May.

Musk also said this week that he plans to cut back on his political spending. But Inacker and others doubt that reduced role will ever be the case.

“I don’t believe for one second that he’s going to magically stop having influence with the Trump White House, or he’s not going to have direct control on where those cuts are happening,” he said.

FUBAR PAC is unapologetically negative in its tactics and messaging. The group’s website says it uses its strategy of “hard-hitting digital content, aggressive paid media, and unique in-person events to define the GOP for what they are: incompetent a**holes.” 

“Attention is something that we need to take and hold, and it’s not just always positive attention. It’s negative attention as well,” Inacker said. “So what I see is just another tool in the toolbox, as a way to make people pay attention to the horrible cuts that we’re seeing to Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans benefits.”

After the Tesla tear-up, FUBAR PAC plans to tour around the state, focusing on congressional districts of Republicans the group thinks are vulnerable in the upcoming midterms. These include Reps. Rob Bresnahan, Ryan Mackenzie and Scott Perry.  

“I’m here today not only only to show my profound and ever-deepening contempt for Elon Musk, but to extend that sentiment to my M.I.A. MAGA Congressional Representative, Ryan Mackenzie,” Jes Lackey, a political activist from Mackenzie’s.

Jes Lackey, a political activist strikes a a 2023 Tesla Model Y, in protest of the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn)

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7th Congressional District in Lehigh Valley, said in her speech Wednesday. 

“I am a big believer in that my best job that I can do is to undercut Republican support amongst Republicans by educating voters on how these cuts are going to hurt them and their families and their pocketbooks,” Inacker said. “And we’re going to use creative ways to do that, like this Tesla event, that get the message out. We can’t just send strongly worded letters anymore. We have to find new and inventive ways to reach people and to not be afraid of making mistakes.”

The group offered a tongue-in-cheek critique of Democrats too. Among the tools available to damage the Tesla was a “Chuck Schumer pool noodle,” to highlight what Inacker called the ineffective tactics currently being employed by the Democratic party, including the Senate Minority Leader from New York. A couple people tried it out. It didn’t leave a mark.

on participant in FUBAR PAC’s Tesla trashing event tries out the “Chuck Schumer pool noodle.” It’s not very effective. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn)

The stretch goals in the fundraising for the Tesla event included dropping it from a crane and repeating the whole process again with a Cybertruck. Inacker said that FUBAR PAC has other envelope-pushing, possibly divisive, “exciting kinetic events” in the works to bring attention to the cuts.

“My thesis for FUBAR PAC is to start with every bad idea that I’ve ever had for a campaign and then refine it into something that we can actually try out,” Inacker said.

While the event provided catharsis and fun for the group of attendees, many said it didn’t quell the anger and despair they were feeling from the DOGE cuts.

“I still feel like it wasn’t enough, man. Like this is cool, it was really fun and it was very cathartic, but it’s not enough,” said one speaker and participant who identified as C.B., a researcher at a local children’s hospital. “This damage will go away, right? It’ll go away, we won’t see it again after this. But the damage that they’re doing to these kids with these cuts is not going to go away. We’re going to feel the effects for a really, really long time.”

A researcher at a local children’s hospital who identified as C.B., smashes the windshield of a 2023 Tesla Model Y, in protest of the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk.(Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) Some of the gold-painted tools FUBAR PAC offered to destroy the 2023 Tesla Model Y, in protest of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) One of the participants in FUBAR PAC’s protest of the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk.(Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) Philly Elmo and the Positive Movement Entertainment Drumline performed, and sometimes joined in, during FUBAR PAC’s Tesla trashing event. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) Participants trash and dismantle a 2023 Tesla Model Y, in FUBAR PAC’s protest of the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) Jes Lackey, a political activist strikes a a 2023 Tesla Model Y, in protest of the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) The hood of the he 2023 Tesla Model Y.(Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) Some of the gold-painted tools FUBAR PAC offered to destroy the 2023 Tesla Model Y, in protest of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) FUBAR PAC’s executive director and founder Jack Inacker poses next to a 2023 Tesla Model Y he and a group badly damaged, to protest the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn)

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