Videos show protesters clashing with police near Tesla's Berlin gigafactory
The protesters rallied against Elon Musk's plans to expand the gigafactory site by clearing out local forest areas.
REUTERS/Christian Mang
- Footage posted on X Friday shows protesters clashing with police near a Tesla factory in Germany.
- The electric car maker shut down production and told employees to stay home.
- The protesters were rallying against Elon Musk's plans to expand the site by clearing out local forest areas.
Videos posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday appear to show protesters clashing with police near a Tesla factory in Germany.
The first of three clips shared by the left-wing newspaper Junge Welt shows activists from the Disrupt initiative marching in Grünheide, around 20 miles southeast of Berlin, where Tesla's only gigafactory in Europe is located.
Two other videos posted by the outlet show protesters clashing with officers in a forest and breaking through a police barrier on the way to the Tesla site.
Disrupt is an "alliance" of self-declared anti-capitalist groups that oppose a plan to double the production capacity of the Grünheide factory.
It argues that Tesla's expansion plan would require it to clear out local forest areas and could tighten local water supplies.
On its website, Disrupt calls Tesla's CEO Elon Musk a "misogynistic Twitter fascist" and argues that electric cars are "neither sustainable nor green."
"The production of an electric car creates a huge ecological footprint through the consumption of resources and thus drives the global climate catastrophe even further," Disrupt says on its site.
"Every tree felled for Tesla is one too many, and every litre of water taken from the ground is wasted," it adds.
André Thierig, a senior manufacturing director at the Grünheide plant, said in a post on X Tuesday that Tesla would shut down production on Friday, responding to a story by the German newspaper Handelsblatt that cited a company email.
"Without the explicit instruction and authority of your manager, access to the site or factory will not be possible," the email said, per the outlet.