People are hilariously putting Ford emblems on their Tesla Cybertrucks

It's nothing new that companies find themselves rebranding when things get tough. Often, it's just a little refresher tweak, sometimes it's a brand-new formula (think New Coke), and many times, companies have to distance themselves from political situations that many find unsettling.

The case of Tesla is an interesting one. While some might immediately think of Elon Musk when the brand is mentioned, it was actually founded in 2003 by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. According to an article from The Street, the idea was to "develop and produce an entirely electric car after observing the favorable reaction test markets had to General Motors' (GM) previous electric car experiment, the EV1."

Musk, the piece tells us, didn't actually join the company until a year later, after he invested 30 million dollars. For many years to follow, it became a brand synonymous with innovation, clean energy, and luxury.

Elon Musk poses for a photo op.en.wikipedia.org

As Tesla continued to rise in popularity, Elon also gained notoriety around the world. Of course, he was already well known in the business sector—but once he began actively expressing himself on social media, things seemed to take a turn. For one, in 2018, "Musk tweeted that he planned to take the company private 'at $420' and had secured funding to buy back Tesla's shares. This set off a round of active trading as investors raced to grab shares before the privatization buyback, elevating the company's stock price by 10% before trading was halted."

But Tesla didn't actually go private, so the following month the Securities and Exchange Commission charged him with securities fraud. Musk and Tesla wound up paying 20 million dollar fines. And though the brand has had great success, and in many ways continues to do so, it has had its share of lawsuits, battles with public image, and yes, late-night tweets. But the thing is, it has never actually "rebranded."

So people are doing it for them. Due to the rise in vandalism toward Tesla (car-keying, fires, spray-paint, etc.), some are desperately trying to go incognito.

@Dannyrayes on TikTok shows us a few attempts of people putting other car "badges" over their existing Tesla logo. The Audi emblem fares extremely well, as it's hard to distinguish between the two. However, the biggest fails are those hysterically attempting to make us think their Cybertrucks are Toyotas. It would be the equivalent of putting a squirrel sticker on a giraffe and exclaiming, "Look at that awesome squirrel!"

Danny includes a clip of someone keying their car and notes that one person "just vandalized his own car, so no one else would do it first."

The comments do not disappoint. One TikTok user points out how illogical it is: "There is no exhaust, so there’s that." And this one is plain genius: "I wonder if people will put Tesla logos on their exes' cars."

Here, TikToker @Molesrcool shows a montage of those trying Ford and other "rough and tough" brands as fake logos to fool the world.

A few point out that it's not so much tricking others as making a funny statement on purpose. Says one commenter, "I think some of them are deliberate... it's satire, like saying 'yeh, I can't get rid of this right now... so let's make fun of it whilst I've got it.'"

In summation, perhaps this comment says it all: "At this point they might as well try putting a lamp shade on top of it and pretend it's a lamp."