The Definitive Story of Tesla Takedown: Inside the Grassroots Movement Targeting Elon Musk
On a sunny April afternoon in Seattle, a group of around 40 activists gathered at the Pine Box, a local beer and pizza bar. The atmosphere was buzzing, a mix of anticipation and camaraderie filling the reserved side room. Attendees mingled, enjoying the warm weather on the patio before settling in. A sound system was set up, ready to broadcast a rather unusual event for a climate activism gathering: a corporate quarterly earnings call. For Emily Johnston, one of the group's leaders and a veteran of over a decade of climate organizing, this was a first. It was also the first time a local TV station had shown up to cover such a happy hour. “This whole campaign has been just a magnet for attention,” she remarked later.
The group, who had officially dubbed themselves the Troublemakers, were quickly rewarded for their unconventional approach. Just minutes into the investors’ call for the first quarter of 2025, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a clear, albeit sideways, acknowledgment of the very work the group and others like them had been doing for the past two months. He specifically called out the nationwide backlash to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. This initiative, aimed at cutting government spending and staffed by young tech enthusiasts and alumni from Musk's various companies, was named with a characteristic Muskian internet-brained flourish after an early 2010s meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog.
“Now, the protests you’ll see out there, they’re very organized, they’re paid for,” Musk asserted to the call's listeners. For weeks leading up to this, thousands of people across the country, including the Seattle Troublemakers, had been staging protests outside Tesla showrooms, service centers, and charging stations. Musk's insinuation was that these protesters were not only compensated for their time but were motivated by a sense of grievance after having their access to what he termed “wasteful largesse” from the federal government cut off. Musk had been floating this theory and refining it on his social media platform X for weeks, presenting it without offering any concrete proof.
To a person, every protester who spoke to WIRED vehemently denied being paid. They insisted they were exactly what they appeared to be: individuals deeply angered by Elon Musk's actions and political alignment. They had coalesced under a common banner, calling their burgeoning movement the “Tesla Takedown.”
The timing of Musk's remarks was particularly notable. Before he even addressed investors on the call, Tesla, the company widely credited with pioneering the modern electric vehicle market and sparking a now multitrillion-dollar global transition away from fossil fuels, had just delivered one of its worst quarterly financial reports in years. Net income had plummeted by 71 percent compared to the previous year, and revenue fell more than $2 billion short of Wall Street’s expectations. The company that had once seemed invincible was showing significant cracks.
Back in Seattle, the first few minutes of Musk’s earnings call remarks ignited a wave of excitement among the partygoers. Many were seasoned veterans of the climate movement, accustomed to long, often frustrating campaigns. Someone near the staticky speakers relayed Musk's key phrases to the small crowd: “I think starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly,” Musk had said. Under the glow of a spinning disco ball, people erupted in cheers and applause. Someone held up a printed chart showing Tesla’s stock performance over the past year — a jagged, but distinctly downward-trending black line.
“If you ever wanted to know that protest matters, here’s your proof,” Johnston recalled weeks later, reflecting on the moment. It felt like a direct hit, a confirmation that their efforts, however small they might seem individually, were having an impact and had clearly gotten under the skin of one of the world's most powerful figures.
The Tesla Takedown movement, an effort explicitly designed to target Musk and his vast wealth where it might hurt most — his primary company — seemed to have arrived at a uniquely opportune moment. For years, Tesla skeptics and short-sellers had argued that the company, despite holding the highest market capitalization of any automaker globally, was fundamentally overvalued. They contended that Musk, the charismatic and often controversial CEO, had successfully used bluster, showmanship, and grand promises to distract from underlying business flaws: an aging vehicle lineup, the underwhelming performance of the much-hyped Cybertruck, and the persistent delays in delivering fully functional self-driving technology.
Musk's increasing foray into politics, which escalated dramatically when he went all in for Donald Trump during the 2024 election cycle, was always bound to invite more intense scrutiny of his sprawling business empire. But the grassroots movement, which began with a seemingly simple a post on Bluesky, a social media platform that emerged as an alternative to Musk's X, quickly grew into a boisterous, diverse, and highly visible locus of, for lack of a better word, resistance against the combined forces of Musk and Trump. While it's notoriously difficult to attribute market movements to any single factor, Tesla’s stock price had indeed fallen significantly, down some 33 percent from its peak at the end of 2024 by the time of the April earnings call.
The rise of the Tesla Takedown movement reflects a particularly complex and, for many, deeply troubling moment in American politics and society. It's a time when traditional alignments seem inverted. A man who built his fortune and public image sounding alarms about the existential threat of the fossil fuel industry has aligned himself with it, reportedly spending hundreds of millions to support a right-wing presidential candidate and becoming embedded in an administration known for its aggressive, slash-and-burn approach to environmental regulation. This alignment is, paradoxically, not good for the broader adoption and success of electric cars, the very technology Tesla champions.
The same figure, once celebrated as a real-life Tony Stark — he even had a cameo in Iron Man 2 — has, for a growing number of people, transformed into something akin to a comic book villain. His actions and perceived skulduggery have proven potent enough to forge an unlikely coalition. This diverse group includes long-time climate activists, federal workers reeling from layoffs and policy changes, champions of immigrant rights, labor union groups, PhDs deeply concerned about the future of American science and research funding, partisans supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, liberal retirees weary of cable news, progressive parents seeking to model standing up for their values, LGBTQ+ rights advocates, despondent veterans, and a significant contingent of car and tech enthusiasts who have been pointing out perceived flaws and exaggerations in Musk’s fantastical technology claims for years.
To meet this moment, the Takedown movement employs a unique and perhaps counterintuitive protest logic. They are boycotting and protesting the electric car company not because they disagree with its core mission of accelerating the transition to sustainable energy — quite the opposite, in fact — but because targeting Tesla might be the most effective way to materially impact the unelected, un-beholden-to-the-public figure at its helm. The hope is that by creating public pressure and potentially impacting sales and the company's financial performance, they can exert influence on Musk's political activities and the policies he supports. And then, they hope, the often-irrational stock market will take notice and react accordingly.
For weeks, this diverse coalition, numbering in the thousands across the United States and even internationally, has maintained a visible presence. They have stationed themselves outside Tesla showrooms in cities like New York; Berkeley and Palo Alto, California; Meridian, Idaho; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Raleigh, North Carolina; South Salt Lake, Utah; and Austin, Texas. Their goal is simple: to make it just a little bit uncomfortable for potential customers to test drive one of Musk’s electric vehicles, or even for current owners to simply drive past in one. The protests are intended to be a constant, visible reminder of the opposition to Musk and his political agenda.
The Genesis of the Movement
When Shua Sanchez graduated from college in 2013 with a physics degree, he recalls a brief period — perhaps a week — when he was absolutely convinced that the most important thing he could do with his life was to work for Tesla. He was acutely aware of climate change and the stakes involved. Having been involved in protests since middle school, when George W. Bush invaded Iraq, he felt a strong calling to activism. He envisioned his life's work contributing to the world's leading electric carmaker, helping to persuade drivers that a cleaner, more sustainable, and perhaps even more aesthetically pleasing life existed beyond the internal combustion engine and fossil fuels.
Ultimately, Sanchez chose a different path, opting for a doctorate program focused on the quantum properties of super-conducting and magnetic materials. (“I shoot frozen magnets with lasers all day,” he jokes about his current work.) He felt increasingly validated in this choice a few years later when he began reading media reports about Tesla’s aggressive efforts to suppress unionizing drives at its factories. His conviction deepened in 2017 when Musk signed on to two of Trump’s presidential advisory councils, a move that seemed to contradict the image of a climate champion. (Musk did publicly depart these councils months later, following the administration's decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, but the initial association lingered.) He felt even more thankful for his career choice in 2022, when Musk acquired Twitter with the stated intention of opening it up to a wider range of speech, which critics argued included extreme right-wing and often harmful content. By the summer of 2024, after Musk officially endorsed Trump’s presidential bid, Sanchez's disillusionment was complete.
The final straw, for many, came in January 2025. Musk appeared onstage at a rally following Trump’s inauguration and made a gesture that many interpreted as a Nazi salute — an interpretation Musk has denied. For Sanchez, now a postdoctorate fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this was the point where simply not working for Tesla was no longer enough. He felt compelled to take more direct action. A few days later, as initial reports about the work of DOGE began to leak out of Washington, a friend sent him a February 8 post on Bluesky from Joan Donovan, a Boston-based disinformation scholar.
“If Musk thinks he can speed run through DC downloading personal data, we can certainly bang some pots and pans on the sidewalks in front of Tesla dealerships,” Donovan posted on the platform, which had already become an online refuge for those seeking an alternative to Musk’s X. “Bring your friends and make a little noise. Organize locally, act globally.” She included a link to a list of Tesla locations and a GIF of the Swedish Chef playing drums on vegetables, adding a touch of internet absurdity to the call to action. Crucially, she appended the hashtag #TeslaTakeover. While that initial hashtag didn't stick, the internet quickly coalesced around a different rallying cry: #TeslaTakedown.
Donovan’s post, while not going massively viral (it had only 175 likes at the time the article was written), caught the eye of actor and filmmaker Alex Winter. Known for his role as Bill in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Winter has more recently produced documentaries exploring online culture, digital rights, and the power of social media. Having previously connected with Donovan over shared interests in activism and punk rock, Winter, who has a larger social media following, reached out to ask if he could help centralize the burgeoning movement. He offered to create a website to serve as a hub for organizing. “I do think we’re at a point where people need to stick their necks up out of the foxhole en masse, or we’re simply not going to get through,” he told WIRED, explaining his motivation. According to Winter, in the website’s first 12 hours of existence, thousands of people registered their interest in taking part in the Takedown.
Donovan’s Bluesky post directly led Shua Sanchez to the Boston Back Bay Tesla showroom on Boylston Street the following Saturday. There, he found about 30 people gathered with signs, ready to protest. For Sanchez, the entire situation felt deeply personal. “Elon Musk started a PhD at Stanford in my field. He quit after two days and then went and became a tech bro, but he presents that he’s one of us,” Sanchez explained, highlighting the perceived disconnect between Musk's background and his current actions. With Musk's increased political visibility and his administration's stated plans to drastically cut government research funding while promoting right-wing ideology, Sanchez felt a strong imperative to push back.
Sanchez has been a consistent presence outside the Boston showroom during the weekly protests throughout the winter and spring. Megaphone in hand, he leads chants that are both pointed and humorous, reflecting the movement's blend of serious intent and playful tactics. Chants like “It ain’t fun. It ain’t funny. Elon Musk is stealing your money,” and “We don’t want your Nazi cars. Take a one-way trip to Mars,” have become staples. “We make it fun, so a lot of people come back,” Sanchez says, emphasizing the importance of community and engagement in sustaining the movement. Creative elements have become part of the Boston protests, including an inflatable tube guy adorned with Musk’s face that has made appearances, flailing dramatically. A popular routine involves a giant, transparent ball representing the “Tesla bubble,” which protesters toss around while others blow smaller bubbles, culminating in the loud, symbolic pop of the large ball — a moment some protesters jokingly interpreted as a sign. At some of the largest Boston actions, hundreds of people have turned out to demonstrate against Tesla, Musk, and Trump, demonstrating the movement's ability to mobilize significant numbers.
While Donovan envisioned the protests as potent, visible responses to Musk’s influence and the administration's actions targeting government programs and jobs, she also recognized the crucial role social movements play as a release valve during times of political upheaval and public frustration. “People need to relieve the pressure that they feel when the government is not doing the right thing,” she told WIRED. “If you let that pressure build up too much, obviously it can turn very dangerous.”
Political Backlash and Government Response
Donovan's observation about the potential for pressure to turn dangerous has, unfortunately, been borne out in isolated incidents, though these stand in stark contrast to the overwhelmingly non-violent nature of the Tesla Takedown movement itself. In at least four separate incidents across four states, individuals have been charged by the federal government with various crimes targeting Tesla properties. These include defacing, shooting at, throwing Molotov cocktails toward, and setting fire to Tesla showrooms and charging stations. These acts of vandalism and violence, while condemned by the Takedown movement's organizers, have been seized upon by the Trump administration.
In a move that has worried civil liberties experts, the administration has treated these attacks against the car company of the president’s richest backer as “domestic terrorism.” This classification grants federal authorities significantly greater latitude and resources to investigate and apprehend alleged perpetrators, and it carries severe potential penalties, threatening those charged with up to 20 years in prison.
Both in posts on X and during public appearances, Musk and other federal officials have appeared to conflate the actions of a few allegedly violent individuals with the wider, peaceful protests against Tesla. They have implied that both the violence and the peaceful demonstrations are funded and organized by shadowy external forces, referred to as “generals.” Musk himself addressed the issue directly at a recent event, appearing remotely via video. His face, looming large over the stage, delivered a stern warning: “Firing bullets into showrooms and burning down cars is unacceptable,” he said. “Those people will go to prison, and the people that funded them and organized them will also go to prison. Don’t worry.” He then looked directly into the camera and pointed his finger, adding, “We’re coming for you.”
Participants and leaders within the Tesla Takedown movement have consistently and repeatedly emphasized that their movement is fundamentally nonviolent. “Authoritarian regimes have a long history of equating peaceful protest with violence. The #TeslaTakedown movement has always been and will remain nonviolent,” stated Stephanie Frizzell, a volunteer organizer in Dallas, in an email. Any violence that has occurred at the protest sites themselves appears to be limited to isolated on-site altercations, which have mostly targeted protesters rather than being initiated by them.
Joan Donovan, the scholar whose Bluesky post helped spark the movement, herself skipped some protests after receiving death threats and hearing rumors that she was on a government list targeting disinformation researchers. On X, prominent right-wing accounts engaged in harassment campaigns against her and other Takedown leaders. Donovan reported that individuals had contacted her colleagues in attempts to get her fired, illustrating the intense personal pressure faced by those associated with the movement.
Then, on the afternoon of March 6, Nathan Phillips, an ecology professor at Boston University, received a panicked message from his wife. She informed him that two people claiming to represent the FBI had visited their home. “I was just stunned,” Phillips recounted. “We both had a feeling of disbelief, that this must be some kind of hoax or a joke or something like that.”
Phillips had attended a Tesla Takedown event a few weeks prior, but he was uncertain whether the visit was connected to the protests or his long history of climate activism. After sitting in shock in his office for about an hour, he decided to call his local FBI field office to clarify the situation. He remembers someone picking up, asking for his information, and then inquiring why he was calling. Phillips explained the visit to his home. “They just abruptly hung up on me,” he says, leaving him with more questions than answers.
Phillips never received any further contact from the FBI regarding the incident. However, he is aware of at least five other climate activists who reported being visited by men claiming to be from the agency on the same day, March 6, suggesting a coordinated effort. The FBI, when contacted by WIRED, stated that it “cannot confirm or deny the allegations” regarding the visits to Phillips’ home. Tesla did not respond to WIRED’s questions about the Tesla Takedown movement or Musk’s allegations of coordinated violence against the company, maintaining its characteristic public silence on such matters.
Despite the unsettling nature of the FBI visit and the online harassment, Phillips says the experience has had the opposite of a chilling effect on his activism. “If anything, it’s further radicalized me,” he stated. He credits the support he received from others in the movement and his community for this reaction. “People having my back and the expression of support makes me feel very confident that it was the right thing to do to speak out about this,” he added, indicating that attempts at intimidation may have inadvertently strengthened resolve.
A Diverse Coalition Takes Shape
Mike, a Department of Labor employee based in the San Francisco Bay Area, had attended a few protests in the past but lacked experience in organizing one himself. He describes his life as busy — married with three young children, a house in the suburbs, and a health condition that can sometimes impair his cognitive function. By his own admission, his initial attempt at organizing in February was a learning experience, a “mixed bag.” It coincided with his first day back in the office after the Trump administration, reportedly spurred by the DOGE initiative, had mandated that all federal workers return to full-time in-office work. Mike was horrified by the rapid pace of job cuts, program alterations, and the palpable animosity he felt flowing from the White House down to his specific corner of the federal government.
“Attacks on federal workers are an attack on the Constitution,” Mike stated, articulating his core motivation. He reasoned that if he could contribute to discouraging people from buying Teslas, it might hurt Elon Musk’s bottom line, potentially leading the CEO to abandon the DOGE initiative altogether. Seeing that a Tesla showroom was conveniently located just a 20-minute walk from his office, he hoped to convince some coworkers to join him there for a symbolic stand against DOGE and Musk. Lacking social media accounts, he taped a few flyers on light poles and posted about his plan on Reddit. “I was really worried,” he confessed, “about the Hatch Act,” the federal law that restricts the political activities of government employees, adding a layer of personal risk to his actions.
His first protest was modest. Only three federal workers — a colleague sitting next to him in the office and a US Department of Veterans Affairs nurse they encountered on the street — joined him. They stood outside the Tesla showroom on Van Ness Avenue in downtown San Francisco, holding “Save Federal Workers” signs. It was a small start, but it was a start.
Then, Mike discovered the #TeslaTakedown website that Alex Winter had built. (Due to an administrative quirk in the sign-up process, the site is now technically operated by the Seattle Troublemakers.) He quickly realized that many other people across the country had independently arrived at the same conclusion: Tesla showrooms were ideal locations to voice their grievances with Trump, Musk, and DOGE. Mike posted his planned weekly event on the website. Since then, the SF Save Federal Workers protest, which takes place every Monday afternoon, has grown significantly, consistently drawing between 20 and 40 people.
Through these weekly gatherings, Mike has connected with a diverse array of other activist groups and individuals. He has met volunteers from the Federal Unionists Network, which represents public sector unions; the San Francisco Labor Council, a local affiliate of the national AFL-CIO; and the East Bay chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. In a testament to the collaborative spirit of the movement, Mike’s group amicably shares the strip of sidewalk outside the San Francisco Tesla showroom with a local chapter of the progressive group Indivisible, which holds larger protests there on Saturdays. “I’m trying to build connections, meet other community groups,” Mike explained, outlining his strategy. “My next step is broadening the coalition.” This focus on coalition-building is a key characteristic of the Takedown movement, bringing together disparate groups united by their opposition to Musk and his political influence.
Evan Sutton, who is part of the national organizing team for the Tesla Takedown, notes that about half of the people coordinating protests across the country are like Mike — individuals who have never organized a protest before. “I’ve been in politics professionally for almost 20 years,” Sutton stated, reflecting on the movement's unique nature. “It is genuinely the most grassroots thing that I’ve seen.” This organic, decentralized growth, fueled by individual initiative and facilitated by online tools, is a defining feature of the Takedown.
Measuring Impact and Future Strategies
Well into the spring, Tesla Takedown organizers nationwide had successfully held hundreds of events across the United States, and the movement had even begun to see participation internationally. The movement has developed a degree of professionalism, issuing press releases to reporters and gaining the buy-in of established progressive organizations. Indivisible, a progressive network with deep roots dating back to the first Trump administration, has seen its local chapters hosting their own Takedown protests. At least one Democratic congressional campaign has even promoted a local #TeslaTakedown event, indicating the movement's growing political relevance.
Beyond the visible protests outside showrooms, the movement points to other indicators of potential impact. Tesla sales have reportedly fallen by half in Europe compared to the previous year and have taken a significant hit in California, which remains the largest market for electric vehicles in the United States. Public figures, including celebrities like Sheryl Crow and Jason Bateman, have publicly announced that they have sold their Teslas due to their disapproval of Elon Musk's actions and political stances. These public divestments, while perhaps not financially significant on their own, contribute to a shifting cultural narrative around the Tesla brand.
Cultural resistance has also taken more creative forms. A Hawaii-based artist named Matthew Hiller began selling “I Bought This Before Elon Went Crazy” car decals in 2023. He estimates he has sold approximately 70,000 anti-Musk and anti-Tesla stickers since then, indicating a significant level of public sentiment. Hiller noted a particularly sharp increase in sales “after his infamous salute,” referring to the controversial gesture at the post-inauguration rally. In Seattle, the Troublemakers group regularly hosts “de-badging” events, where small numbers of what are described as sheepish Tesla owners show up to have the distinctive T emblems drilled off their cars, a symbolic act of disassociating themselves from the brand and its CEO.
In Portland, Oregon, on a recent Saturday in May, Ed Niedermeyer was once again experiencing the heat inside his shark costume as he hopped along the sidewalk in front of the local Tesla showroom. His sign featured the DOGE meme — an alert Shiba Inu — with the caption “Heckin’ fascism.” (A reference that resonates with those familiar with early 2010s internet culture.) The sound of honking cars provided a frequent soundtrack; the shark costume, he noted, tends to elicit positive reactions from passing drivers. Around 100 people had gathered for this particular Takedown protest, held in front of a Tesla showroom located kitty-corner to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, a location chosen to highlight the intersection of corporate power and government policy.
Niedermeyer, a car writer by profession, has been closely following Elon Musk and Tesla since 2015, when he discovered that Tesla wasn’t actually operating a battery swapping station as it had claimed. Since then, he has authored a book, Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, and has documented numerous instances of what he alleges are half-truths and exaggerations from Musk and the automaker on their path to becoming a dominant force in the industry.
Despite the visible protests and the reported dips in sales and public image, Niedermeyer acknowledges that Musk and Tesla have proven remarkably resilient and difficult to significantly impact, even by a nationwide movement protesting literally outside their doors. The initial cheer in Seattle during the April earnings call, fueled by the stock drop and Musk's defensive remarks, was followed by a rebound. Tesla’s stock price gained steam through the spring, and ironically, it rose on the news that its CEO would no longer officially work for the federal government — the very outcome the protesters had hoped to achieve by targeting him through Tesla. Musk has consistently argued that investors should value Tesla not merely as a carmaker but as a cutting-edge AI and robotics company. At the end of the month following the earnings call, after years of delays and shifting timelines, Tesla announced plans to launch a robotaxi service. According to research notes from many Wall Street analysts, they appear to be buying into Musk's vision, continuing to value the company based on future potential rather than current automotive performance.
Even a highly public fight with the President of the United States — one that devolved into name-calling on Musk’s and Trump’s respective social platforms — was not enough to definitively pop the Tesla bubble, at least in the eyes of the market. “For me, watching Musk and watching our inability to stop him and create consequences for this snowballing hype and power has really reinforced that we need a stronger government to protect people from people like him,” says Niedermeyer, expressing a sentiment shared by many in the movement who feel that existing regulatory and political systems are insufficient to hold powerful billionaires accountable.
Despite the challenges and the apparent resilience of Tesla's market valuation, Tesla Takedown organizers remain committed and believe their efforts are making a difference. They even take some credit for the perceived cracks in the Musk-Trump alliance, arguing that the public pressure they helped generate contributed to Musk's decision to step back from his official role with DOGE. They emphasize that the protests will continue, adapting as needed.
The movement has also begun to incorporate a more cerebral and potentially impactful strategy: organizing local efforts to convince cities, states, and municipalities to divest from Musk’s companies, particularly Tesla. This approach targets institutional investors and public funds, seeking to create financial pressure through ethical or performance-based divestment decisions. They achieved a significant breakthrough in May when Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, became the first US public pension fund to publicly state it would not purchase new Tesla stocks for its managed investment accounts, citing both performance concerns and political considerations. This marked a tangible victory for the divestment strategy and provides a potential model for other municipalities.
The movement's goals may be ambitious, aiming to impact a billionaire whose wealth and influence seem almost boundless. Yet, as Ed Niedermeyer argues, despite Tesla’s apparent resilience and Musk's continued ability to command market attention, Musk is arguably America’s most vulnerable billionaire precisely because he has so closely tied his public persona and political activities to his primary business. He is the CEO of an electric car company, the figurehead he meticulously crafted by firing his PR team and taking direct control of his narrative. He is the one who has alienated a significant portion of the electric car company’s natural customer base — environmentally conscious, often politically progressive individuals — through his headlong plunge not only into political spending but into the delicate and often controversial mechanics of government itself.
Now, Niedermeyer, and everyone involved in the Tesla Takedown, and perhaps everyone in the whole world watching this unfolding drama, can only do what they can within their sphere of influence. So, there he is, in a shark costume on the side of the road in Portland, maintaining the legally mandated distance from the car showroom behind him, a small but visible part of a larger, complex, and evolving story of resistance in the age of the billionaire CEO.