Crowds of people protesting against Elon Musk’s purge of the US government under President Donald Trump have begun amassing outside Tesla dealerships throughout the country in an attempt to dent the fortunes 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 Government Efficiency (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 (€314 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 against Musk and DOGE have been comparatively sporadic but Saturday's action marked the first attempt to surround all 277 Tesla showrooms and service centres in the US in the hopes of deepening a recent decline in the company's sales.
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 hopes to rally protestors at more than 230 Tesla locations in other parts of the world.
Although the turnout in European locations wasn't as large as the crowds in the US, 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 Musk was accused of using shortly after Trump’s inauguration in January.
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 attended the London protest.
Tesla Takedown was organised 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, 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 organising event 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 US Attorney General Pam Bondi has decried as domestic terrorism.
Musk indicated he was dumbfounded by the attacks during a company meeting earlier in March, saying 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 on 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 was appointed to lead 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 20 March 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 seven 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 5 November election and his 20 January inauguration, creating an additional $560 billion (€517 billion) in shareholder wealth.
But virtually all those gains have evaporated amid investor worries about the Tesla backlash, lagging sales in the US, Europe and China, and Musk spending time overseeing DOGE.
