How ethical is Tesla?
Our research highlights many ethical issues with Tesla Inc, including its approach to tax conduct, workers’ rights and conflict minerals.
We also take a look at the major issues with Tesla owner Elon Musk; from his role in shutting down U.S. federal bodies working on climate change, to his support for far-right parties.
Below we outline some of these issues. To see the full detailed stories, and Tesla’s overall ethical rating, please sign in or subscribe.
Boycott Tesla
Tesla is owned by Elon Musk; the richest person in the world. The company is the subject of a significant boycott call over Musk’s actions.
TeslaTakedown is a worldwide movement of peaceful protests objecting to Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk, who is "using his obscene wealth and social media heft to support far right movements”.
Musk's links to Donald Trump
At the beginning of Donald Trump's second term in office, Musk was a major supporter and ally of the U.S. President.
Between January 2025 and May 2025, Musk led the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump administration – a body supposedly designed to cut government spending. Musk was unelected to the role.
Musk’s work with DOGE received criticism globally, with experts saying it triggered a “constitutional crisis” in the U.S.. Musk denied that DOGE represented a “hostile takeover” of the U.S. government.
Under Musk, DOGE’s actions included accessing private taxpayer data, cutting environmental initiatives and attacking programmes that include DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) principles. Its work has brought about mass layoffs of federal workers, including in organisations monitoring extreme weather conditions and the country’s department for providing overseas aid (USAID).
Musk stepped down from his role in DOGE in May 2025, due to rules limiting his involvement to 180 days.
Business talks with alleged war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu
In November 2025, Elon Musk held a conference call with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Transportation Minister Miri Regev, and National AI Directorate chief Erez Eskel.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the group “discussed ongoing cooperation between Israel and Tesla, including efforts to advance legislation on autonomous vehicles”. Musk was also said to have accepted Netanyahu and Regev's invitation to visit Israel, in order to participate in a conference about smart transportation in 2026.
The International Court of Justice issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
Links to Tommy Robinson
Musk has backed the UK far-right leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. This is despite a string of convictions for Yaxley-Lennon, who is better known under this pseudonym Tommy Robinson. He served a prison sentence until May 2025 after repeatedly making false allegations against a Syrian refugee who was 15-years-old at the time.
Robinson has previously been convicted for fraud, public order and drug offences, as well as contempt of court. He was a member of the fascist British National Party (BNP) between 2004 and 2005, and later co-founded and led the radical-right English Defence League “against the rise of radical Islam”.
In summer 2024, while on holiday at a five-star-hotel in Cyprus, Robinson spread online misinformation falsely suggesting that a Muslim migrant was responsible for the murder of three children in Southport. Multiple commentators accused him of fuelling the Islamophobic riots that spread across the UK in the following weeks.
In January 2025, Musk began calling on authorities to “Free Tommy Robinson” on his social media platform X. Later that month Robinson’s team posted on Telegram that Musk had offered financial support to the far-right leader, stating: “We are grateful to Elon Musk and his team at X for agreeing to provide support to Tommy Robinson for two specific legal cases”. Musk did not confirm the donation, and its size is unknown.
Musk backs far-right German party
Elon Musk has also been a vocal supporter of the far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), which won over 20 percent of the vote during Germany’s recent general elections.
During a livestream on X with the party’s co-leader Alice Weidel in January, Musk declared: “Only AfD can save Germany, end of story.” He added: “I'm really strongly recommending that people vote for AfD.”
Appearing via video at an AfD rally the same month, he urged German voters to move beyond "past guilt". The statement came a week after he was criticised for appearing to use a Nazi salute during Trump’s inauguration.
Members of the AfD party have repeatedly trivialised the Holocaust, with AfD co-chairman Alexander Gauland calling it "just a speck of bird's muck in more than 1,000 years of successful German history". Some have also used Nazi rhetoric, such as "Lügenpresse", which means “lying press”.
$1 trillion payout to Elon Musk
In November 2025, Tesla shareholders voted in favour of a pay package for Elon Musk that totalled nearly $1 trillion.
Musk responded to shareholders opposing the pay package, stating: “Tesla is worth more than all other automotive companies combined. Which of those CEOs would you like to run Tesla?… It won’t be me.”
Tesla and tax avoidance
Tesla has multiple subsidiaries in tax havens, such as The Netherlands, Singapore and in Delaware, USA, that are high risk for tax avoidance purposes.
Tesla’s UK Tax strategy states: “The primary tax objective of the Company is to comply with tax filing, tax reporting and tax payment obligations in the UK in order to ensure that the right amount of tax is paid at the right time. In relation to cross-border transactions, Tesla applies the OECD standard and ensures that the transfer pricing policies are in line with the ‘arm’s length principle.’
However, the company did not explain the purpose of its subsidiaries in tax havens.
The University of Dublin research project “Democracy Challenged” examines tax laws and political economies that allow companies to “channel vast sums into private coffers while depleting public resources”. In February 2025, it published an article claiming that Tesla has perfected this strategy.
The company scored very poorly in Ethical Consumer’s tax conduct rating overall.
Approach to climate change
Tesla only manufactures electric vehicles (EV). Throughout their lives, EVs emit far less greenhouse gases than petrol or diesel cars and are therefore considerably better for the climate.
However, when it comes to manufacturing, Tesla does not provide evidence of reducing its main climate impacts; in fact, its emissions increased in 2024.
Where Tesla has made claims about the climate benefits of its products, climate groups have also questioned its calculations. In March 2025, carbon accounting platform Greenly calculated that the company’s real avoided emissions were 28-49% lower in 2023 than Tesla claimed. Tesla did not appear to have responded to the allegation.
The company also lacks a target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in line with vital international climate goals. The website for the Science Based Targets initiative, the leading accreditor for corporate climate targets, states that Tesla's commitments have expired and therefore have been removed from the programme.
Workers’ rights abuses
Tesla has a poor track record on workers rights.
In March 2025, the company was criticised by the University of Alabama in Birmingham, USA, for the lack of protective equipment in its Texas Gigafactory. The article stated that “four employees at the Austin site had been exposed to dangerous chemicals without the appropriate training or safety precautions”. Workers also complained that safety instruction was either hurried or superficial and didn’t focus on long-term precautions.
Tesla did not appear to have responded to the allegations or to have commented publicly on a number of fines it had received for violations at the factory.
In Germany, Sweden, and the US, according to an article by the International Trade Union Confederation in 2024, Tesla has aggressively violated the right to organise, refused to engage in collective bargaining, and provoked unprecedented strike action.
In poorer countries, where its raw materials are mined, human and workers’ rights abuses are also prevalent. Online outlet The Verge reported in 2023 that Tesla’s battery material supplier, Glencore had topped the list of human rights abuses for the second year in a row. Glencore had faced over 70 allegations since 2010, according to research by the civil society group Business and Human Rights Resource Center.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where cobalt for its batteries are mined, Tesla’s suppliers have been accused of relying on forced labour, physical abuse and corruption. No response from Tesla could be found.
Read about boycotts of Tesla and Twitter.
Read about grassroots boycotts of Tesla and Musk.
Find alternatives to Tesla in our guide to cars and electric cars.
This article was mainly written in March 2026, with most research conducted in December 2025.