Tesla have benefitted for years from their association with Musk. Deliberately so, their marketing has never been afraid to associate the two very closely when he’s perceived as a genius inventor, the real life Tony Stark, yadda yadda. It’s just come back to bite them. Specifically drawing a circle around “politics” seems like a very convenient opt-out clause.

> We need to change the law to treat political views as a protected trait

Just as soon as someone can define what “political views” are and aren’t, I guess? To choose an extreme example: if I’m a racist that’s bad but if I believe in the political concept of a whites-only ethnostate is that protected?

It’s very, very difficult to define where “politics” starts and stops.

> if I’m a racist that’s bad but if I believe in the political concept of a whites-only ethnostate is that protected?

Bad views are protected. That's the point of it. Not difficult.