Protesters Swarm Tesla Showrooms to Oppose Elon Musk's Purge of US Government

Crowds protesting billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of the U.S. government under President Donald Trump began amassing outside Tesla dealerships throughout the U.S. and in some cities in Europe on Saturday in the latest attempt to dent the fortune of the world’s richest man.

The protesters are trying to escalate a movement targeting Tesla dealerships and vehicles in opposition to Musk’s role as the head of the newly created Department of of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, where he’s gained access to sensitive data and shuttered entire agencies as he attempts to slash government spending. Most of Musk’s estimated $340 billion fortune consists of the stock he holds in the electric vehicle company that he continues to run while also working alongside Trump.

Earlier protests have been somewhat sporadic. Saturday marked the first attempt to surround all 277 of the automaker’s showrooms and service centers in the U.S. in hopes of deepening a recent decline in the company’s sales.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in San Francisco, filling the entire sidewalk in front of the Van Ness Street Tesla dealership, with even more protesters on the sidewalk across the street and in the median. Most were carrying homemade signs, some of which read “Musk is stealing from us” and “Musk must go.” Passing cars frequently honked in support — including some people in Teslas.

Protest organizer Patty Moddelmog said “Elon Musk is not worried about laying off hundreds of thousands of employees, but he’s very worried about his bottom line.”

Protester Felicia Becerra works for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs which terminated nearly 2,000 employees under Musk and President Trump, a move that has been the subject of lawsuits, at least one of which resulted in many of those same workers being reinstated.

“There are certainly cuts that are happening that are going to impact the infrastructure that the VA is dependent on,” said Becerra. “Eventually it’s going to hit the veterans I think once they start cutting call center employees, once they start cutting the people that manage claims, it’s going to hit a lot of veterans and not just the people who are employees.”

Hundreds also gathered at the Tesla dealership in Berkeley, playing music and dancing as they blocked off Fourth Street, waving signs that read “Solve All Budget Issues: Tax Elon Musk,” “My Dad Works for the Government but He’s Not a Waste,” and “Turd Reich,” among others.

Local Kate Klaire said she came out to Berkeley to be part of a “global uprising around the world … because every single thing that’s going on right now is threatening our democracy.”

Protester Kent Sparing from Albany said, “If we wanted to fund everything, we could just simply tax [Elon Musk] what he should be paying in taxes.”

Berkeley local and self-described “dangerous immigrant” Tony Hansen said “I’ve been here for more than 50 years and I’ve paid plenty of taxes and I believe in it. That’s why I’m here.”

There were protests in other parts of the Bay Area as well.

“Hey, hey, ho, ho, Elon Musk has got to go!” several dozen people chanted outside a showroom in Dublin, California, about 35 miles east of San Francisco, while a smaller cluster of Trump supporters waved American flags across the street.

By early afternoon, crowds ranging from a few dozen to hundreds of protesters had flocked to Tesla locations in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Minnesota and the automaker’s home state of Texas. Pictures posted on social media accounts showed protesters brandishing signs such as “Honk if you hate Elon” and “Fight the billionaire broligarchy.”

The Tesla Takedown movement also hoped to rally protestors at more than 230 Tesla locations in other parts of the world. Although the turnouts in Europe weren’t as large as the crowds in the U.S., the anti-Musk sentiment was similar.

About two dozen protesters held signs lambasting Musk outside a Tesla dealership in London as passing cars and trucks tooted horns in support.

One of the signs displayed at the London protest showed a photo of Musk next to an image of Adolf Hitler making the Nazi salute — a gesture that Musk has been accused of reprising shortly after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. A person in a tyrannosaurus rex costume held another sign with a picture of Musk’s straight-arm gesture that said, “You thought the Nazis were extinct. Don’t buy a Swasticar.”

“We just want to get loud, make noise, make people aware of the problems that we’re facing,” said Cam Whitten, an American who showed up at the London protest.

Tesla Takedown was organized by a group of supporters that included disillusioned owners of the automaker’s vehicles, celebrities such as actor John Cusack, and at least one Democratic Party lawmaker, Rep. Jasmine Crockett from Dallas.

“I’m going to keep screaming in the halls of Congress. I just need you all to make sure you all keep screaming in the streets,” Crockett said during a Tesla Takedown organizing call held earlier this month.

Some people opposed to Musk have gone beyond protests and set the automaker’s vehicles on fire and committed other acts of vandalism that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has decried as domestic terrorism. Musk indicated he was dumbfounded by the attacks during a March 20 company meeting and said the vandals should “stop acting psycho.”

Crockett and other Tesla Takedown supporters have been stressing the importance for Saturday’s protests to remain peaceful.

But police were investigating a fire that destroyed seven Tesla vehicles in northwestern Germany early Saturday morning. It was wasn’t immediately clear if the blaze, which was extinguished by firefighters, was related to the Tesla Takedown protests.

A growing number of consumers who bought Tesla vehicles before Musk took over DOGE have been looking to sell or trade in their cars while others have slapped on bumper stickers seeking to distance themselves from the billionaire’s efforts to prune or shut down government agencies.

But Musk didn’t appear concerned about an extended slump in sales of new Tesla cars in his March 20 address to employees. He reassured the workers that the company’s Model Y, which is undergoing a refresh, would remain “the best-selling car on Earth again this year.” He also predicted Tesla will have sold more than 10 million cars worldwide by next year, up from about 7 million cars now.

“There are times when there are rocky moments, where there is stormy weather, but what I am here to tell you is that the future is incredibly bright and exciting,” Musk said.

After Trump was elected last November, investors initially saw Musk’s alliance with the president as a positive development for Tesla and its long-running efforts to launch a network of self-driving cars.

That optimism helped lift Tesla’s stock by 70% in the period between Trump’s Nov. 5 election and his Jan. 20 inauguration, creating an additional $560 billion in shareholder wealth. But virtually all those gains have evaporated amid investor worries about the Tesla backlash, lagging sales in the U.S., Europe and China, and Musk spending time overseeing DOGE.

“This continues to be a moment of truth for Musk to navigate this brand tornado crisis moment and get onto the other side of this dark chapter for Tesla,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a research note leading up to Saturday’s protests.

Associated Press business writer Michael Liedtke reported from San Francisco, with contributions from AP’s Mustakim Hasnath from London and Stefanie Dazio from Germany. KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara contributed reporting from San Francisco and Lakshmi Sarah from Berkeley.