New York Moves to Shutter Tesla Dealerships in Blow to Musk
New York Senator Patricia Fahy used to be on Tesla’s side until Elon Musk joined forces with Trump.
Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
Lawmakers in New York state are moving to shut down Elon Musk’s Tesla dealerships in yet another blow to the billionaire CEO.
New York State Sen. Patricia Fahy and other lawmakers are fighting to remove a waiver that allows Tesla to operate five in-person dealerships in New York, instead forcing the company to sell their vehicles through dealer franchises, The New York Times reported Sunday.
“No matter what we do, we’ve got to take this from Elon Musk,” Fahy said in March when she first introduced the bill against Tesla. “He’s part of an effort to go backwards.”
She wants the company to relinquish its five licenses and instead distribute them to other EV manufacturers, such as Rivian, Scout Motors, and Lucid.
Fahy was a champion of electric vehicle companies like Tesla opening in-person dealerships in New York, saying that an increase in EV sales would help cut emissions in the state.
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She now joins a growing number of Democratic officials and legislators who have drastically changed their tune on Tesla following the 2025 election, when Musk joined forces with Trump.
Fahy said that Musk is “part of an administration that is killing all the grant funding for electric vehicle infrastructure, killing wind energy, killing anything that might address climate change.”
“Why should we give them a monopoly?” she asked regarding Tesla, adding that this bill was her “making amends” with her previous support of the company.
Musk responded to Fahy’s efforts to shut his company’s dealerships down in a now-deleted social media post in March, saying that it was “improper for lawmakers to target a single person or company.”
The growing outrage against Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) goons has ignited both national and international protests against the billionaire CEO’s company.
In the last few months, Tesla dealerships and cars have been vandalized or set on fire, its sales have dipped, and its profit dropped by 71 percent in the first three months of 2025.
Fahy herself joined a protest in Colonie, New York, in early April to oppose Tesla’s plan to open a 30,000-square-foot showroom and charging area.
“The bottom line is, Tesla has lost their right to promote these when they’re part of an administration that wants to go backwards,” Fahy said. “Elon Musk was handed a privilege here.”
The bill is now in the hands of the Senate and Assembly finance committees and will be considered once a budget agreement is reached.
A spokesperson for New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that if the bill passed both of the Legislature’s chambers, she would review it.
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