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Hundreds of protests at Tesla showrooms are planned across the US and internationally on Saturday. Organizers have dubbed it Tesla Takedown’s Global Day of Action, the latest and largest in a series of demonstrations that began shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated. Organizers say the rallies will take place in front of more than 200 Tesla locations worldwide, including nearly 50 in California alone.
The protesters’ goal is to send a message to the Trump administration that they’re against what the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, is doing with the US federal government – laying off thousands of workers, cutting department budgets, giving fascist salutes and getting rid of entire agencies.
“Nobody voted for this, and nobody voted for Elon,” said Vickie Mueller Olvera, who has been organizing Tesla Takedown protests in the Bay Area. “He’s an unelected super-billionaire and he’s a thug.”
Tesla Takedown describes itself as a decentralized grassroots movement that will “protest Tesla for as long as Elon Musk continues to shred public services”. The group says on its organizing page that Musk is “destroying our democracy using the fortune he built at Tesla” and so, in turn, they are “taking action at Tesla”. Local organizers are planning their own demonstrations rather than coordinating with one national group.
Going after Musk’s bottom line
Olvera said that demonstrators were asking people to do three things: don’t buy a Tesla, sell off Tesla stock and join the Tesla Takedown protest movement.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment. On X, the social media platform he owns, he has said that the work he is doing for the federal government heading the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is “literally improving government efficiency, like the name says”.
As Musk has made his mark on the federal government and Tesla Takedown protests have grown, his car company’s financial performance has suffered. Since Trump’s inauguration, Tesla’s stock has plummeted more than 35%, sales have nosedived and the resale value for used Teslas appears to have hit an all-time low. Musk’s own net worth has fallen by 25% since then, about $100bn. Some Tesla owners have said they sold their cars after Musk gave a speech on inauguration day that included two Nazi-style salutes.
Earlier this month, Trump and Musk showcased Tesla vehicles on the driveway of the White House. The president touted the electric cars, staging a photo op inside a red Tesla sedan where he exclaimed, “Wow … everything’s computer,” and declared he would buy one. The two also condemned the anti-Tesla protests, and Trump said he would designate any violence against showrooms as domestic terrorism.
Jonathan V Last, the editor for the Bulwark, a politically conservative and anti-Trump website, has credited much of Tesla’s decline to the takedown protests.
“I would go so far as to say the Tesla takedown protests have been one of the most consequential protest movements in the shortest amount of time ever,” Last said during a Bulwark podcast that aired this week. “They helped to obliterate one-third of Elon Musk’s net worth, in like 100 days. And when you attack his money stack, you attack his power.”
The protest movement grows
Tesla Takedown protests started popping up in towns and cities across the US in mid-February. On social media, people posted photos of small gatherings in front of Tesla showrooms with demonstrators holding signs that depicted Musk as a Nazi and said things like “Diabolical Oligarchs Gaslighting Everyone” and “No Swastikars”, a new nickname for Teslas.
Olvera said that’s around the time she heard about a protest happening near her in the Bay Area, so she checked it out. She stood around with the other demonstrators in front of a showroom, holding her anti-Musk sign and joking around, and then something unexpected happened.
“People would drive by, you know, just passersby,” Olvera said. “And some of them just stopped and joined in.”
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The protests kept growing each week with the same crowd coming back and newcomers participating. Olvera, who now organizes demonstrations, said that Tesla owners started joining the protests as they gained momentum and put bumper stickers on their cars saying “I bought this before Elon went crazy.” At one point, she said, even the owner of a Cybertruck – the massive boxy metallic trucks that have become synonymous with Musk – joined the protest.
“I see Elon Musk as hijacking our government, and he’s just dismantling everything that we hold dear,” Olvera said. “Everything that people have fought long and hard for, like social security, Medicare and Medicaid and our beautiful national parks … it just feels like the rug is getting pulled out from under us.”
Anti-Tesla sentiment – and protests – go global
The same pattern has taken shape across the US. Cities like New York and Chicago now see several hundred people joining in the weekly Tesla Takedown protests. On social media, the Bluesky account for Tesla Takedown has gained nearly 25,000 followers in just a matter of weeks. And one of the group’s top promoters, Alex Winter, an activist and the actor who played Bill in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, has amassed nearly 200,000 followers on Bluesky with his daily posts of anti-Musk protests.
Tesla Takedown organizers have been careful to distance themselves from the violent vandalism that has also been carried out against Tesla showrooms. Dozens of Tesla facilities have been attacked in the middle of the night with molotov cocktails, gunshots or graffiti saying things like “Fuck Elon” and “Tesla is Fascist.”
On Monday, the FBI launched a taskforce to go after the alleged vandals, calling them “domestic terrorists”, which Trump, Musk and the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, have also called them. The FBI director, Kash Patel, posted on X: “This is domestic terrorism. Those responsible will be pursued, caught, and brought to justice.” On Wednesday, police arrested a suspect in a high-profile attack against a Tesla showroom in Las Vegas that involved molotov cocktails. The suspect was charged with 15 counts.
Tesla Takedown organizers also condemn the vandalism. “We are a non-violent grassroots protest movement,” the group says. “We oppose violence and destruction of property. Peaceful protest on public property is not domestic terrorism.”
For Saturday, Tesla Takedown organizers say they expect to see the biggest turnout yet, with 213 planned protests from Waterville, Maine, to Honolulu, Hawaii – that includes 32 international locations in countries such as Australia, Finland and Germany.
“LFG!” the group posted to Bluesky. “Let’s send these techno-fascists, broligarchs and old fashioned Nazis a message loud and clear.”
