Organizers behind the “Tesla Takedown” protests are planning their “biggest day of action” to date with demonstrations at 500 showrooms across the world on March 29, the group said in a " target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">planning call late Wednesday.
Protesters around the world are targeting Elon Musk and his publicly traded EV company in response to his role as a senior adviser to President Donald Trump and his efforts to slash budgets and workforces within the U.S. government.
What began in February with a handful of protests outside Tesla showrooms has since grown into a global wave of demonstrations. Organizers are now urging consumers to sell their Tesla stock and vehicles, aiming to pressure Musk—whose status as the world’s richest man is largely tied to his stake in Tesla—to back off.
“The reason we’re calling for this is simple: It’s because we need people to step up,” New York organizer Alice Hu, who is also the executive director of the climate-focused nonprofit Planet Over Profit, said on the call. “We need to show Elon that he can throw a tantrum online because his stocks are tanking, he can get Trump to put on a humiliating used car show in front of the White House, that these wannabe authoritarians can try to intimidate us from exercising our First Amendment rights, but they can’t stop us from fighting back.”
The group aims to stage protests at all 277 Tesla showrooms across the U.S., and would need 223 protests to take place in other countries to meet its target of 500. Speakers on Wednesday’s call stressed that demonstrations must remain peaceful.
Since Trump took office and Musk was put in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Tesla owners and dealerships have seen an increase in vandalism. The Department of Justice on Thursday announced it had charged three individuals with using Molotov cocktails to set fire to Tesla vehicles and charging stations.
“The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement this week. “We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”
Lauren Regan, founder of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, said on Wednesday’s Tesla Takedown call that the Trump administration is trying to pick out a few individuals to scare the rest “into submission and apathy,” noting, “During time periods where the government and corporations are attempting to crack down on dissent or crack down on activism, if they believe that that tactic is working for them, if they think that state repression is actually successful in silencing you, then you’re going to see them double down on that tactic,” Regan said. “It’s only going to get more pronounced and more impactful on our movement spaces.”
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