Anti-Musk Tesla Showroom Protests Spread Worldwide in Western US
Anti-Musk protests have centered around Tesla showrooms, and the “Tesla Takedown” protests have spread across the US and around the world.
“Protesters opposing billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of the US government under President Donald Trump staged protests outside Tesla dealerships across the US and in some European cities on the 29th in the latest attempt to vandalize the wealth of the world’s richest man,” AP reported on the 30th.
The protesters were trying to expand the movement targeting Tesla dealerships and vehicles, opposing Musk’s role as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in closing down entire agencies while trying to access sensitive data and cut government spending.
After somewhat sporadic initial protests, the weekend marked the first attempt to encircle all 277 Tesla showrooms and service centers in the US in an attempt to exacerbate the company’s recent sales decline. By the afternoon, dozens to hundreds of protesters had descended on Tesla stores in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Minnesota, and Tesla’s home state of Texas.
As AP reporters covered the country, the protests spread across the country, with smaller groups of counterprotesters also showing up at some of the sites, in major cities like Washington, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Seattle, as well as towns in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Colorado.
In Dublin, California, about 35 miles (60 km) east of San Francisco, dozens of people chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Elon Musk’s got to go!” outside a showroom, while a small group of Trump supporters waved American flags across the street.
In Berkeley, an even larger crowd surrounded another Tesla showroom, chanting to the beat of a drum. “We live in a fascist state,” said Dennis Fagali, a retired high school teacher in neighboring Oakland. “We have to stop this. Otherwise, we’re going to lose our entire country and everything that’s good about America.”
Anti-Musk protests are spreading beyond the United States to Europe.
The “Takedown Tesla” movement hopes to rally protesters at more than 230 locations around the world, the AP reported, and while turnout in Europe was not as strong, anti-Musk sentiment was similar to the United States.
Outside a Tesla dealership in London, about 20 people held up signs denouncing the billionaire with a Hitler-like salute, while passing cars and trucks honked their horns in support.
Photos posted on social media showed anti-Musk protesters waving signs that read “If you hate Elon, Honk” and “Fight the billionaire brogue.” A sign depicting Musk giving the Nazi salute next to an image of German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler is the same salute Musk has been accused of repeating following Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
A person wearing a Tyrannosaurus rex costume held another sign with a photo of Musk with his arms crossed, shouting, “You thought Nazis were extinct. Don’t buy swastikas,” the AP reported.
“We just want to raise our voices, make noise, and make people aware of the issues we’re facing,” Cam Whitten, an American who attended the London protest, told the AP.
The Tesla Takedown was organized by a group of disillusioned Tesla owners and supporters, including actor John Cusack and Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas. "I'm going to keep screaming in the hallways of Congress. I need you all to keep screaming in the streets," Rep. Crockett said during a YouTube call with the organization's #TeslaTakedown Mass Mobilizing Call on Saturday.
Another Democrat, Rep. Pramila Jaypal, showed up at a protest in Seattle.
Bluesky was listed on the account #TeslaTakedown@teslatakedown.com on Saturday as saying, "Thank you for joining #teslatakedown @pramilajayapal.bsky.social."
The AP posted a photo of a burned Tesla outside a Tesla dealership in Ottersberg, Germany, early Saturday morning. “Some people have gone beyond the protests to setting Teslas on fire and committing other acts of vandalism that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has condemned as ‘domestic terrorism,’” the AP reported. “During a company meeting on March 20, Musk said he was shocked by the attacks and that the vandals should ‘stop acting like psychopaths.’”
The AP added that “Crockett and other Tesla Takedown supporters have stressed that it is important that the protests remain peaceful,” but that “police were investigating a fire that destroyed seven Teslas in northwestern Germany early in the morning. It was not immediately clear whether the blaze, which was put out by firefighters, was related to the protests.”
Musk is spending a ton of money to help Democrats secure a lead in Wisconsin’s April 1 judgeship race, a fiercely contested Democratic-Republican battleground in the U.S. Midwest. The New York Times reported on the 29th that “Democrats want Judge Crawford, a liberal jurist from Dane County, to win and maintain the court’s 4-3 liberal majority, while Republicans want to regain control for conservatives after Judge Schimmel, who sits on the Waukesha County bench, loses in 2023, making this the second straight state Supreme Court primary that has turned into a national referendum on party fervor,” and that “senior officials from both parties are focusing their attention on the primary.”
The New York Times reported that “Elon Musk and his allies have spent more than $20 million to support conservative candidates in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court primary on March 1.” “Just months after spending more than $250 million to re-elect Trump and becoming the largest donor to the 2024 presidential election, Musk is pouring more money than anyone else into a race to control a court poised to make decisions on abortion rights, redistricting and labor rights in a top battleground state.
He has posted about the race on social media, live-streamed with his chosen candidate and plans to visit Wisconsin on the evening of the 30th, two days before Election Day.”
The Times continued, “In the process, Musk became the face of a high-stakes Wisconsin judgeship race, a test of whether Democratic anger can overshadow a billionaire’s political machine.” “The victory of conservative challenger Brad Schimel, who received more than $20 million from Musk and his allies, would mean that the billionaire has written a new recipe for success for Trump officials across the country, making himself the center of attention rather than the candidate.”
Musk’s “stakes politics” began with financial incentives.
He offered $100 to Wisconsin voters who signed a petition “against activist judges,” and, repeating a tactic he used in Pennsylvania before the presidential election, he created a sweepstakes where those who signed the petition and voted received two $1 million checks.
He later made it clear that he would “not condition the payment on voting later.”
Musk told his 219 million X followers on the 29th that when he visits Wisconsin on the 30th, he would be handing out two $1 million checks to people who had already voted in the election “as a thank you for taking the time to vote,” adding that the offer was “only open to those who had already voted.”
American campaign finance experts have said that paying to vote violates state law.
“I had to clarify my previous post,” Musk wrote about 12 hours after his first post on X, adding that “only those who signed the petition against activist judges will be admitted. I will also be handing out $1 million checks to two people who will be the spokespersons for the petition.”