Tesla arson leads to charges against Las Vegas man

A Las Vegas man has been arrested on charges related to the Molotov cocktail arson attack on Tesla vehicles in that city in mid-March, authorities said Thursday.

The incident was one of the highest-profile acts of vandalism in a series of attacks on Tesla locations around the country related to company CEO Elon Musk‘s role in the Trump administration heading DOGE, the effort to slash federal spending and employee headcount.

The FBI has called those incidents “domestic terrorism” and launched a task force to address the attacks.

Paul Hyon Kim, 36, faces state and federal charges for the attack at Tesla Collision on West Badura Avenue in Las Vegas at 2:45 a.m. on March 18.

Five Teslas were damaged from Molotov cocktails and or bullets fired at them, according to a criminal complaint.

Kim was arrested in connection with the Las Vegas incident on Wednesday, two days after a police bomb squad found multiple incendiary devices at a Tesla showroom in Austin, Texas. Federal authorities said Kim had a flight booked for Thursday out of Las Vegas to Milwaukee.

Authorities identified Kim as the suspect in the Las Vegas attack from surveillance video of a Hyundai vehicle that was seen leaving near the scene of the incident, as well as other evidence, including bullet fragments, and cell phone tower records and the complaint said.

The complaint said that less than three hours after the attack, at 5:30 a.m., Kim filed an insurance claim that said the tires of his own car had been slashed, and that his car had been stolen and then recovered.

But a query of local police reports did not show that Kim had notified police that his car had been stolen or recovered, the complaint said.

A search of Kim’s residence found a black backpack with pink paint, a black hoodie, face masks, ammunition, holsters, gun parts, an AR-style rifle, an AK-style rifle, and a handgun, the complaint said.

Also found was “paper with what is believed to be a handwritten egress route from Tesla on Badura.”

Federal prosecutors in Las Vegas have charged Kim with unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm and arson.

There have been at least 80 reported cases of vandalism or arson of Tesla vehicles in the United States and Canada.

Musk in a tweet responding to news of Kim’s arrest wrote, “Legacy media propaganda is what convinced this guy to do it. Same media that convinced assassins to target the President.”