Senator Mark Kelly gets rid of his Tesla after Musk calls him 'traitor' for visiting Ukraine

Senator Mark Kelly said he was getting rid of his Tesla Model S after billionaire Elon Musk called the senator a "traitor" on his social media platform X for visiting Ukraine just days after the U.S. paused military aid to Kyiv.

“I’m here in Washington driving to work for the last time in my Tesla,” Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, said in a video posted on X on March 14.

"When I bought this thing, I didn’t think it was going to become a political issue. Every time I get in this car in the last 60 days or so, it reminds me of just how much damage Elon Musk and Donald Trump is doing to our country," he said in the video.

Musk, CEO of Tesla, owner of SpaceX, and now head of the U.S. President Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), called Kelly a "traitor" on X on March 10 in a thread of the senator's trip to Ukraine, which included visits with officials and embassy staff, as well as nurses, volunteers, and soldiers.

Kelly, a former Navy pilot and astronaut who used to work with Musk's SpaceX, swiftly replied, criticizing Musk’s stance.

"Traitor? Elon, if you don't understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do," he wrote on March 10.

Along with his video saying that he was ditching his Tesla on March 14, Kelly wrote, "I bought a Tesla because it was fast like a rocket ship. But now every time I drive it, I feel like a rolling billboard for a man dismantling our government and hurting people. So Tesla, you’re fired!"

"New ride coming soon," he wrote.

The Musk-Kelly exchange came amid heightened tensions between the Trump administration and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and a heated argument in the Oval Office earlier this month.

As the Trump team looks to bring a swift end to the war in Ukraine, it has increasingly put pressure on Kyiv, including temporarily pausing military aid and intelligence sharing, while so far making little demands of Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

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The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima