A California license plate reading “LOLOCT7” that caused a social media uproar and an apology from officials was misconstrued, the owners of the offending Tesla Cybertruck say.

The plate is not mocking the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, the owners said, but instead is sending a message in the Tagalog language of the Philippines. “Lolo” means grandfather, CT refers to the car and the number refers to the family’s coterie of grandchildren.

“We’re a large Filipino family and this had nothing to do with the conflict in the Middle East,” an unnamed family member told Los Angeles NBC affiliate KNBC-TV.

The plate first went viral after the StopAntisemitism account on X pointed out the plate in a post Thursday after the car was spotted in Culver City, California.

The account jumped to the conclusion that it was mocking the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas and “celebrating terrorism against the Jewish people.” The attacks took the lives of 1,200 people in Israel, 46 of them Americans, and led to the abduction of 254 more, 12 of whom were Americans according to the U.S. State Department.

The resulting social media uproar led the California Department of Motor Vehicles to issue an apology.

“This is unacceptable and disturbing. The DMV is taking swift action to recall these shocking plates … We sincerely apologize that these personalized plates were not properly rejected during our review process. The use of hateful language is not only a clear violation of our policies but also a violation of our core values to proudly serve the public,” officials wrote.

The family that owns the car said the California DMV did not contact them before making the apology. They are planning to take it in to a DMV branch Monday in order to swap out “LOLOCT7” for something else.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.