Tesla Takedown protest movement grows as Trump threatens criminal charges

There's a decent chance you have seen them while driving past your local Tesla dealership recently: Groups ranging from a few dozen to several hundred protesters congregating outside electric vehicle lots. They are part of a nationwide effort to highlight CEO Elon Musk and his role in President Donald Trump's dismantling of the federal government. With sign waving and slogan chanting, these so-named Tesla Takedown demonstrations have become a flashpoint of public anger at Musk; there has also been an uptick in ostensibly unrelated instances of vandalism at Tesla dealerships.

In response to the Tesla Takedown movement and its overlap with more extreme cases of anti-Tesla actions, Musk has personally targeted participants, alleging the grassroots movement is a conspiracy against him backed by the Democratic Party and George Soros, among others.

Trump, has similarly attacked protesters as "domestic terrorists," while Attorney General Pam Bondi warned them to "watch out because we're coming after you" in a Fox Business interview this month.

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'Ready to rupture'

Broadly, the Tesla protests "illustrate a growing unease" with Musk's "influence" in the Trump administration, said the BBC. Protests have targeted "showrooms, dealerships, charging stations and the Cybertruck itself," said Vanity Fair, with the intent to "meddle with Musk's finances and highlight how he's meddling with federal spending programs." Despite growing participation in the protests, Tesla Takedown demonstrations are "relatively small-scale," The Associated Press said. However, they are "significant" for being "one of the first signs of activism" against Trump's second term.

Musk's net worth is "massively overvalued," said actor-director Alex Winter, one of Tesla Takedown's earliest organizers, to Rolling Stone. "Detaching" him from the company to which most of his fortune is tied would be a "meaningful blow" financially. It is also "undermining his image" of a radical genius, which is a "balloon that's ready to rupture." To that end, polls show Musk and DOGE have become "widely unpopular in America" since he assumed a position in the Trump administration, said Axios.

'Fake rallies'?

In spite of Musk and DOGE's plummeting popularity, the Trump administration and Musk have made a point of attacking the Tesla Takedown movement with threats of criminal consequences while at the same time alleging the protests are an inorganic political operation. Protesters are trying to "illegally and collusively boycott Tesla," Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Trump LIVE: Trump Warns Tesla Protesters, Says Violence Against Tesla is Domestic Terrorism | Musk - YouTube

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Seattle Tesla Takedown organizer Valerie Costa has been "committing crimes," Musk said on X, accusing Costa of being paid by ActBlue, the Democratic party fundraising platform. "We have no connection to ActBlue," Costa said to NPR after Musk personally targeted her. "We have like $3,000 in our bank account. I could tell you every single person who donated." Without evidence, Musk has nevertheless continued to accuse the Tesla Takedowns and similar events of fraud, calling protests "fake rallies" during his chainsaw-wielding speech at CPAC in February.

The government has "already directed an investigation be opened to see how is this being funded, who is behind this, doing this," Bondi said to Fox Business last week. Congress is also prepared to "investigate the sources of these attacks" against Tesla, said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on X.

Ultimately, said Kea Wilson at Streetsblog, the federal threats against Tesla Takedown participants and the conflation of acts of vandalism with peaceful demonstration means that protesters who continue in the face of Trump's warnings "will be doing something very brave."