Did a viral video capture a motorist hitting a pedestrian after a road rage incident with a Tesla driver? No, that's not true: The driver who seems to have hit a pedestrian had been yelling at someone driving next to them in a non-Tesla pickup truck. Neither the sound in the video nor the original description of the clip mentions Tesla and the rear cargo area shown is not found in any Tesla model.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on March 28, 2025. It opened:
Retard enraged by a Tesla driving next to him hits a pedestrian.
Democrats are out of their fvcking minds!
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Mar 28 19:30:17 2025 UTC)
The clip captured a heated exchange between two drivers after which the driver in the right lane appears to hit a pedestrian or bicyclist in a crosswalk while turning to the right at an intersection.
However, the person who filmed this version of the exchange and was seen driving away without an incident in the footage was driving a pickup truck with a standard cargo bay, not available in any Tesla model.
As the final frames of the video show, the car in question was a pickup truck:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Mar 28 19:36:23 2025 UTC)
According to the Tesla website, it did not sell pickup trucks with open cargo beds as of March 28, 2025:
(Source: Tesla screenshot taken on Fri Mar 28 19:39:39 2025 UTC)
Online photos of Tesla passenger-side doors both at Tesla.com and in advertisements for Tesla parts do not match the design of the interior of the passenger door clearly visible in the video:
(Source: Collage assembled by Lead Stories compares screenshot from video to screenshot of a Tesla parts page on Amazon.com)
Neither the sound nor the caption of the original footage (archived here) posted on Instagram said anything about the vehicle being a Tesla, either.
The account (archived here) that posted the claim contained a self-attributed produced label saying that it publishes "parody at times".
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Other Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Tesla are here.
