A day after Elon Musk publicly claimed conspiracy to assassinate him and destroy his electric vehicle company Tesla amid widespread protests and vandalism incidents at the company’s showrooms across the country, US president Donald Trump backed Musk. Taking to Truth Social on Thursday (March 20), Trump said that people who are caught sabotaging Tesla cars may go to jail and face prison term of up to 20 years.

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"People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to twenty years, and that includes the funders. WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!," Trump wrote.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi has also called the recent violent attacks on Tesla property "nothing short of domestic terrorism".

"The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind, including in cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences," said Bondi in a statement.

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"We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes," she added.

Protests, attacks against Tesla

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Earlier, Musk claimed that left-wing groups may be behind the protests and attacks on Tesla cars and dealerships.

“I think there are larger forces at work as well,” he said. “I mean, who’s funding and who’s coordinating it? Because this is crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Tesla is a peaceful company, we’ve never done anything harmful. I’ve never done anything harmful, I’ve only done productive things, so I think we just have a deranged... I think there’s some kind of mental illness going on here,” he added.

Various demonstrations have been staged at Tesla properties across the country, while some Tesla owner’s cars have also been vandalised.

In a recent incident, an arsonist attacked five Tesla vehicles at a dealership in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday morning (Mar 19).

Musk claims threat to life

Speaking to Sean Hannity of Fox News, Musk revealed that the reason why certain people “want to kill” him is the attempts made by him to cut government waste and fraud.

“It turns out when you take away people's, you know, the money that they're receiving fraudulently, they get very upset,” the billionaire said.

“And they basically want to kill me because I'm stopping their fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla because we're stopping the terrible waste and corruption in the government. And, well, I guess they're bad people. Bad people do bad things," he added.