A man who tried to torch a Tesla dealership at the height of the anti-Elon Musk craze last year was slapped with the minimum possible five-year prison sentence by a federal judge this week.
Federal prosecutors had sought more than seven years behind bars for Ian William Moses, saying he set a Cybertruck afire and tried to burn the Arizona dealership last April without regard to the dangers of igniting the lithium battery and without checking to see if anyone was inside.
Moses’ lawyer characterized the attack as one from a troubled man who “struggles with autism spectrum disorder” and who bungled his plans so badly that, despite his attempts to avoid detection, he was arrested on his dirt bike just minutes after the incident.
“The truth is, Ian is no criminal mastermind,” his lawyer told the judge in a sentencing memo. “Thus, the real question becomes: why would someone this smart do something so dumb? The answer is that one cannot fully understand his actions without understanding his autism.”
Mr. Musk, head of Tesla and social media platform X, became a target last year when he joined President Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency.
That sparked a spate of vandalism and attacks on Teslas.
Moses, 35, went to a Tesla dealership early on April 28 prepared to set fires, bringing Duraflame logs he’d bought to help sustain the blaze.
He left his cellphone at home, prosecutors said, to avoid being tracked and left his van blocks away from the dealership, instead using a bicycle to travel the final quarter mile.
He poured gasoline onto three Teslas parked against the side of the building, then placed the Duraflame logs against the dealership wall and poured gasoline on them, too. He spray-painted “THEIF” on the wall and ignited the logs, with one Cybertruck exploding when the vehicle’s compressed air tank went up.
Police caught Mr. Moses an hour later as he pedaled back to his van.
“Despite having a background in electrical engineering, and thereby knowing of such dangers, Defendant went forward with his attack without any regard that his arson could be life threatening to first responders or others,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Raymond Woo wrote to the judge.
Moses pleaded guilty in October to five charges of malicious damage.
The charges carried a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, and that’s what the judge delivered, along with three years of probation.
“Arson can never be an acceptable part of American politics,” said Timothy Courchaine, the U.S. attorney in Arizona.
