Tesla Takedown Protesters Are Hitting Musk Where It Hurts: His Bottom Line

On April 26, protesters outside a Tesla Dealership in Washington, D.C. were elated. That week, Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and head of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), indicated to shareholders that he would step back from government, allocating a mere “day or two per week” toward DOGE projects. In mandatory Securities and Exchange Commission filings and comments to Wall Street analysts, Tesla acknowledged that protests had created a risk factor for the valuation of Tesla stock. “Changing political sentiment,” Tesla wrote in a shareholder report, “could have a meaningful impact on demand for our products in the near term.” In quarterly reports, Tesla reported a 71 percent drop in profits.

For protesters, this was a victory a long time in the making. In the opening months of the Trump administration, Musk’s ascendency knew few limits. On his first day in office, Trump conjured DOGE via executive order and placed Musk at the helm, granting him sweeping powers to remake the federal government. Described by Musk as a “woodchipper for bureaucracy,” DOGE bulldozed government programs, cancelled contracts and fired career civil servants, often eclipsing the limits of the law and raising questions regarding constitutional separation of powers. During Musk’s tenure, DOGE effectively shuttered USAID, granted young employees access to sensitive Treasury Department payment data, and commandeered the Office of Personnel Management to send emails to every executive branch employee in the government demanding information about their work accomplishments. In mid-April, DOGE attempted to extend its power beyond the government itself into civil society, making a ploy to install government staff within a prominent nonprofit that formerly received federal funding.

Faced with limited levers to enact change against an agency commissioned by executive fiat, protesters developed an alternative tactic: attempting to make the Tesla brand sufficiently noxious to strike at Musk’s personal fortune. Musk is currently the richest person in the world, with a plurality of his net worth originating from his shares in Tesla. By protesting at Tesla dealerships across the country, protesters hoped to draw attention to the havoc DOGE has wrought while putting financial pressure on Musk to drop out of government. “Stopping Musk will help save lives and democracy,” the Tesla Takedown website reads. “Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines.”

Beginning in February, protesters began to appear at Tesla dealerships across the nation. The protests went viral — and exhibited staying power, recurring week after week. The Tesla Takedown map currently lists upcoming events in 63 localities spread across 23 states. The movement has also spread internationally; Tesla Takedown protests have been held in Canada, the U.K. and across Europe, particularly Germany. In northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. protesters picket the Tesla dealership three times per week, reliably drawing crowds of 15 to 35 protesters.

Coming Under the Eye of the Surveillance State

The Tesla Takedown movement eschews property damage and holds a firm commitment to nonviolence. But in topline rhetoric, Trump officials have drawn connections between the protesters dancing on the sidewalk and the spate of vandalism and arson attacks targeting Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging locations. In March, FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi signaled that the most serious of these incidents — a shooting through the windows of a Tesla dealership and two arson incidents — qualified, in the government’s eyes, as domestic terrorism. The FBI announced the creation of a dedicated task force, and the Department of justice (DOJ) indicated that the agency would seek 20-year prison sentences for the three accused.

The FBI and DOJ have both indicated a willingness to extend investigatory powers beyond arson attacks into minor acts of vandalism and First Amendment-protected protests outside dealerships. In a March public statement, Bondi warned, “If you’re going to touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything, you better watch out because we’re coming after you.”

Michael German, fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program and a former FBI special agent, expressed concern about Bondi’s statements. “Protesting at a Tesla dealership is a lot different than throwing a Molotov cocktail,” he noted in an interview with Truthout. “My concern based on the history would be that they engage in suppressive activities and investigations of people who were merely engaged in organizing protests, rather than engaging in violations of criminal laws.”

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have all assessed that the most serious criminal actions undertaken against Tesla were likely the work of lone actors. But despite a dearth of evidence linking Tesla arsonists with the Tesla Takedown protest movement, intelligence gathering bodies have disseminated information to local law enforcement encouraging vigilance around nonviolent protests. The Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a fusion center established after 9/11 to, as it states, “identify, prevent, protect against, mitigate, and assist in the response to and the recovery from the greatest human-made threats and major hazards,” issued a bulletin reading: “Violent opportunists may exploit these gatherings [Tesla Takedowns] to mask criminal intentions, including vandalism, arson, or other disruptive acts.” The bulletin further notes that “calls to boycott Tesla and protest Elon Musk have also increased.” While fusion centers conduct no investigations of their own, the information they provide can drive investigatory and policing decisions on the ground.

“This type of intelligence document is what state, local and federal police use to justify their investigations. So if calls to boycott Tesla are linked to this escalating threats document, then you can imagine that local police might see a local group picketing Tesla as a threat,” German commented.

Protesters Respond to Right-Wing Threats

Local police aren’t the only threat protesters must contend with. Since the first Tesla Takedown day of action, InfoWars alum and right-wing activist Laura Loomer has frequented protests in Washington, D.C. posting videos to her large online following. On her X/Twitter account, followed by 1.6 million people, she frequently maligns Tesla pickets as linked to violence. After a minor incident of vandalism at a New York City protest, Loomer threatened to forward the information of protesters associated with one of the protest sponsors, Planet Over Profit, to the Trump administration for use in their domestic terrorism investigation. Coming from a figure with enough cachet in the Trump administration to get six National Security Council advisors fired, some protesters found cause for concern. Less than a week after Loomer published an article about the funders of the Sunrise Movement — another organization involved in Tesla Takedown protests in New York City — Trump echoed her allegations, speculating in public comments that “people that are very highly political on the left” were paying Tesla attackers.

But in D.C., protesters show no signs of backing down, either in response to Loomer or to the threat of state surveillance. Instead, they have adopted a strategic exuberance, Mike Kepka, known at the D.C. protests as Captain Beats, told Truthout about the first week of Tesla Takedown protests. “It was a dance party, but no one brought the music,” he recounted. That day, he settled for blasting music out of the open windows of his minivan, but the next week, he came back with real firepower: the AV system he uses for his daughters’ Girl Scout events, complete with boat batteries for power and a Facebook Marketplace-sourced bike trailer. From that week onward, the D.C. contingent of the Tesla Takedown movement rebranded as Dance Against DOGE.

As Loomer and her video team continued to make appearances, protesters began adding informational fliers about Dance Against DOGE to the lineup of protest signs. On the flier, the group reiterates its commitment to First Amendment protest and states: “Our fight is with Elon, Trump, and the billionaires, not individual Tesla owners.” As top-level discourse around Tesla protests became increasingly threatening, activists doubled down on creating an atmosphere of joy. They began to don captain’s hats and sparkly attire.

“As the weeks have gone on, it’s gotten wilder and wilder,” Dance Against DOGE protest organizer Melissa Knutson recounted. “We have the hats, we have the tinsel boas, we have bubbles. They [right-wing activists] are on Twitter going, ‘we’re at another Tesla Takedown, and they’re dancing with bubbles.’ It really defuses the whole thing.”

Next Steps for the Movement

Tesla’s profits have plunged and Musk will be reducing his time at DOGE, but protesters aren’t letting up. Knutson pointed out that, even if Musk withdraws from government altogether, Musk’s “minions” at DOGE will continue to slash government jobs and choke funding. And, said Knutson, the protests are about combating the bigger billionaire agenda, and building a resilient resistance movement against the Trump administration writ large. Some local chapters of the Tesla Takedown movement are expanding their activism beyond dealerships into city halls, advocating for local governments to pull Tesla stock from pension portfolios. While this phase of the movement is in its infancy, there are promising signs that divestment resolutions could move forward in some cities and states. In March, 23 members of the New York State Assembly wrote to the state comptroller to advocate divestment of pension funds from Tesla stock. In response to waves of anti-Trump sentiment roiling Canada after the enactment of tariffs, the province of Ontario canceled its contract with Starlink, another of Musk’s companies. Several D.C.-area protesters expressed enthusiasm for initiating divestment resolution campaigns in the suburb of Takoma Park and in Montgomery County.

And for the protesters on the streets continuing their crusade outside dealerships, Tesla Takedowns take on a broader resonance: fighting for democracy itself.

“We’ve always said this is about getting people comfortable showing up and exercising their rights,” said Knutson. “You can see people walking by who maybe have never protested before, but they’ll join a dance party.”

“It’s nonviolent, fun, lets people do something they wouldn’t have done yesterday. If we can do that, maybe we can save democracy,” said Kepka before cueing up the next song. Upon hearing the opening bars of “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” the crowd roared along, tinsel boas glinting in the sun.