It’s fun to watch Tesla’s combination of declining sales, bad press, and tumbling stock price. Given the organic nature of the disdain for Musk in multiple countries, a brand so interconnected with its founder, and whose existing customer base are so politically and socially opposed to him, it might be the most fertile ground to launch a boycott in history. Meta and Amazon are much harder targets both because of the sacrifice required to boycott and because Zuckerberg and Bezos support Trump rather than serve as his chainsaw man.
Still, shouldn’t we boycotting Amazon & Meta? Zuckerberg and Bezos both proudly stood behind Trump at his inauguration. They both contributed millions to Trump’s committees. By curtailing the Washington Post and reducing site moderation, both have made their companies more useful to Trump. And then there is the general risk they pose because of their concentration of wealth. The destructive impact of social media on our young people. The destructive impact on our social fabric and local businesses when we shop online instead of in person.
I realize that I am not the first to propose such a boycott. Although I missed them at the time, I found calls to boycott Meta for a week in January and to boycott Amazon for a week in March. Several famous figures have dropped Meta for Bluesky. But we’ve been bombarded with political news these last months and to me it seems a boycott of Meta and Amazon has fallen by the wayside despite how effective the Tesla boycott has been.
So should we be promoting boycotts of Meta and Amazon as among the actions to fight off authoritarianism?
