Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include a response from a family member of the vehicle’s owner.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles has issued an apology over a license plate that was interpreted as mocking the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.
Last Thursday, the license plate on a Tesla Cybertruck was highlighted in a post to X by StopAntisemitism, a group dedicated to exposing incidents of anger and hatred directed at Jews. The organization said the vehicle was seen at the intersection of Jefferson and Sepulveda Boulevards in Culver City.
The license plate reads, “LOLOCT7.” “LOL” is typically considered an acronym for “Laugh Out Loud.”
“How did this get processed?” the post read. “Demand the @CA_DMV recall this license plate that celebrates the October 7th terrorist attack—a vile mockery of the 1,200 innocent lives lost and the countless others scarred.”
On Thursday afternoon, DMV officials apologized and called the situation “unacceptable and disturbing” in a statement on X.
“The DMV is taking swift action to recall these shocking plates, and we will immediately strengthen our internal review probes to ensure such an egregious oversight never happens again,” the department said.
Over the weekend, however, the story took an unexpected twist when journalists contacted the son of the Cybertruck’s owner, who said the plate was being misread and misinterpreted.
The son, who did not want to be identified, told KTLA’s Angeli Kakade that “Lolo” means “grandfather” in Tagalog, “CT” is short for Cybertruck, and the number 7 represents the owner’s seven children.
Tagalog is a language spoken in the Philippines and by tens of millions of people globally.
The son said they didn’t mean to offend anyone and, because of the reaction, would change the Cybertruck’s plates.
On Monday, the DMV acknowledged the misinterpretation but said the plates would still be recalled, even if the family chose not to take action.
“While the plate’s owner has shared that … the configuration was intended to honor their Filipino heritage, we recognize that the same combination of letters and numbers has been interpreted by others as offensive, particularly within the Jewish community,” the department said in its explanation. “We understand that language and symbols can hold different meanings across cultures and communities. What may be a term of endearment in one context can be perceived differently in another.”
The DMV also reiterated that it is “reviewing and strengthening” its process for evaluating vanity license plate requests.
It was unclear if the plates were registered before or after the Oct. 7 attack.