Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk is no stranger to dipping his toes into the world of controversy. The billionaire is famous for sharing his thoughts on several widely debated political topics on social media and is also known for making controversial business decisions. Constantly being wrapped up in heated conversation appears to be having unintended consequences affecting one of his top businesses.
Tesla HQ is reportedly spending millions of dollars on security after it has battled a plethora of “terroristic threats,” forcing it to dial 911 several times in recent months, according to a new report from Business Insider.
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In Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, the company was forced to call 911 in March last year after then-Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn, who board members were considering to be Musk’s replacement, received a threat via email where someone claimed that they had been hired to kill him if he doesn’t step down from his position, according to records obtained by Insider. The person also instructed him to wire $300,000 to a bitcoin account “within 12 hours” to keep his life.
Once law enforcement got involved, they deemed the threat as a scam. Kirkhorn abruptly resigned from his position a few months later in August.
In another incident that was more recent, a 911 call at the same factory was made in January when a Tesla employee took to social media platform X, which is owned by Musk, to threaten to kill Musk and U.S. President Joe Biden. Law enforcement, who handled the situation, labeled it as a “terroristic threat” and arrested the employee.
According to Insider, there have been over five 911 calls due to “terroristic threats” that were made from Tesla’s HQ between April 2022 and January this year.
Workers at Tesla’s Nevada and Texas factories also allegedly have to go through three security checkpoints to enter the building and have their badges checked on shuttles and at the gate for employees who drive to work. According to workers who spoke to Insider, they also have to go through two additional checkpoints after entering the building.
They also allege that Tesla has ramped up factory security measures after recently laying off roughly 10% of its workforce in April.
Musk opens up about recent threats
The revelation comes after Musk revealed during Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting on June 13 that he has been receiving threats from “homicidal maniacs” in recent months.
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“I probably need to work out and, like, not get assassinated or something,” said Musk during the meeting. “I mean it is getting a little crazy these days. Like to first approximation, the probability that a homicidal maniac will try to kill you is proportionate to how many homicidal maniacs hear your name. So they hear my name a lot, I'm like okay I'm on the list. So we actually did have two homicidal maniacs in the last roughly seven months come to aspirationally try to kill me and a bunch of other people.”
Amid the recent threats, it appears Musk is indeed making security at Tesla a higher priority. In April, Tesla revealed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it had entered into a service agreement with an unnamed security company that Musk owns. Tesla paid the company $2.9 million for security services between 2023 and February 2024, “representing a portion of the total cost of security services concerning Elon Musk,” read the filing.
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The threats come at a time when Musk has been very active X, often sharing his social and political views. Late last year, he received significant backlash for endorsing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on X, which prompted many advertisers to leave the platform, costing it millions of dollars.
Tesla’s leadership has recently received criticism from Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson for being “distracted.”
“There's an interest in social media, even politics, and it's kind of losing its way,” said Rawlinson in an interview on BBC’s “Wake up to Money” podcast. “I don't see it having that singular sense of purpose.”
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