The Tesla service center in Brooklyn is not the most visible place on earth. Tucked away on a quiet, warehouse-lined street with little foot traffic, it’s the kind of place you’d easily miss if you weren’t looking for it. But on a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon this past weekend, the block was anything but quiet.
Dozens of sloganeering protesters gathered outside, waving placards, whistling and whooping to express their angst and ire aimed squarely at President Donald Trump and his billionaire “first buddy” Elon Musk.
The protest was part of the third straight week of demonstrations at Tesla stores and repair centers around the world, all taking aim at Musk and his increased role in gutting the U.S. government—and in global far-right politics.
“You can’t run a country like a corporation,” Emily Waters, a professor of art and design at the Parson’s School Of Design, told InsideEVs. “It should be run by the people who we voted for. Elon was not elected,” Waters said, referring to Musk’s role as a special government employee and the head of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
New York City, Sunday March 2: Protesters gather outside Tesla’s showroom in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood.
The “Tesla Takedown” demonstrations have been taking place since early February, as InsideEVs previously reported. But this past weekend’s nationwide mass mobilizations dialed things up, indicating growing signs of trouble for Tesla, whose sales have been tanking globally this year.
In Brooklyn, protesters held placards that read “Stop the coup,” “Musk must go,” and “Dangerous oligarchs gutting everything.” Another one with a painting of Kabosu, the Shiba-Inu that inspired the viral “Doge” internet meme read “fake agency, very data breach, much illegal.”
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
New York City, Sunday March 2: Protester holds a placard with a painting of Kabosu, the Shiba-Inu that inspired the viral “doge” internet meme.
Passers-by cheered and oncoming vehicles, including Teslas and NYPD police cars, honked in solidarity. The Tesla facility itself appeared closed.
Protesters also turned out in huge numbers in many other U.S. cities, including Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tucson, Cleveland, Columbus and Ann Arbor. At Tesla’s Manhattan showroom, the uproar was even more intense. Hundreds of people rallied in defiance and nine of them were arrested.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s chainsaw-wielding CEO has been attending cabinet meetings (even though he’s no cabinet member), courting world leaders and playing the role of White House “Tech Support.”
A final tally of Musk’s exact donations to Trump’s reelection campaign puts the figure at an unprecedented $288 million. Under his leadership in Washington, Musk’s DOGE has gutted long-standing federal agencies and fired thousands of American employees, including career officials who have spent decades helming these branches.
“It’s easy to read about this and be like, this is awful, everything’s so bad,” said Becca, a New York student who preferred to keep her last name anonymous. “But people need to show their support, whether it’s calling their Congress members or whether it’s coming out on the streets.”
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
New York City, Sunday March 2: Protesters gather outside Tesla’s showroom in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood.
That’s exactly what has been happening over the past month: protesters are organizing movements on grassroots liberal platforms like Action Network and Indivisible, with the movements further fueled through social media platforms like BlueSky and Threads.
Even celebrities have gone public. Country-pop star Sheryl Crow sold her Model 3 and donated the proceeds to NPR, which Musk has threatened to defund. Actor and filmmaker Alex Winter told InsideEVs last week that the protests aren’t necessarily targeting Tesla but trying to decouple Musk from it.
The full impact of these demonstrations on Tesla’s business is still unclear.
The automaker typically releases its first-quarter sales and earnings results in April. But it’s set to have a busy year on multiple fronts. Deliveries of the refreshed Model Y start in the U.S. this month. The robotaxi autonomous ride-hailing service is expected to begin in Austin in June. And Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy indicated on Ride The Lightning podcast that updates are coming to the Model S and Model X this year—Tesla’s high-end models whose sales have been dwindling. But we’ll see if that helps the automaker regain its mojo.
In the meantime, however, Tesla is facing a great deal of anger from the people who once were quite likely to buy its cars.
“The atrocious things [Musk] did in the past were about his own company and to the people he hired and fired and humiliated,” Waters said, referring to Musk’s layoffs at Tesla last year and the thousands he fired at X (formerly Twitter) after taking over the platform. “We did not vote him in. It’s time that we wake up.”
Do you work at Tesla and have a story to share? We are happy to chat anonymously and securely. Contact me at suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com or via the Signal app at suvrat.74.
