A 19-year-old from Kansas City, Missouri, has been arrested and hit with federal charges after allegedly firebombing Tesla vehicles during spring break, the Justice Department revealed Friday.
Owen McIntire, a college student currently attending school in Boston, returned home for spring break when the attack occurred on March 17. He now faces serious charges: one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device and one count of malicious damage by fire to property used in interstate commerce.
The arson took place at the Kansas City Tesla Center late that night. According to court documents, a Kansas City police officer on patrol noticed smoke billowing from a grey Tesla Cybertruck around 11:16 p.m. When investigators arrived, they found a suspected Molotov cocktail near the scorched vehicle. The flames didn’t stop with one car—fire quickly spread to another nearby Cybertruck, and two charging stations were also damaged in the blaze.
Both vehicles were valued at more than $100,000 each, while the charging stations were worth $550 apiece, prosecutors said.
Photos released by the Department of Justice show McIntire at the Kansas City International Airport. It’s not yet clear how he’s pleading, and no attorney information has been made public.
The case marks the second Tesla-related arson arrest this week. Federal authorities also charged Jamison Wagner of New Mexico with separate attacks on a Tesla dealership and the Republican Party’s state headquarters in Albuquerque. He has not entered a plea either.
“This wasn’t vandalism — it was a violent criminal act,” said Dan Driscoll, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. FBI Special Agent Stephen Cyrus echoed that, stating, “We are committed to ensuring the safety and security of our community from violent actors.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a blunt warning: “Let me be extremely clear to anyone who still wants to firebomb a Tesla property: you will not evade us. You will be arrested. You will be prosecuted. You will spend decades behind bars. It is not worth it.”
The incident is part of a broader wave of backlash against Tesla since CEO Elon Musk took on a new role in Washington as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE. In recent months, Tesla properties across the U.S. have faced escalating protests, vandalism, and arson.
With federal prosecutors stepping in and arrests being made coast to coast, the message is loud and clear: targeting Tesla is no longer just reckless — it’s a fast track to federal prison.
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Send him to ja
Make an example of this little punk, 20 yrs, federal lock up. Maybe these idiots will think twice about domestic terrorism.
Send him to jail. Then pardon him immediately like Trump did for all of his domestic terrorist insurrectionists. What he has done is not any worse than what they or Trump did ! Why should he be treated more harshly than traitor Trump and his traitor insurrectionists ??
According to Biden’s FBI, the J6 Debacle was not an insurrection, therefore none of those pardoned by Trump were insurrectionists nor traitors to the United States. Trump committed no treason, according to the courts, so he is not a traitor.