Elon Musk has spent the past month destroying the U.S. federal government with his team of DOGE goons, taking a chainsaw to USAID, NOAA, Social Security, and countless other vital agencies. And while President Donald Trump is ostensibly the guy in charge of the country, most Americans understand Musk has the real power. And there’s a growing movement to protest the billionaire CEO at Tesla dealerships and SpaceX headquarters.
The grassroots protest movement 50501 launched a website earlier this month to let people find the demonstrations against Trump and his cronies. But if you’re looking for protests that specifically target Musk, the website Tesla Takedown is the place to be.
The Tesla Takedown website is searchable by zip code. For example, typing in a Los Angeles zip code right now delivers the results below for events in L.A. proper down to Long Beach and even as far away as Irvine in Orange County, California. The protests listed when you search an L.A. zip code are all at Tesla dealerships and Tesla storefronts across Southern California on Saturday, March 1, as well as Sunday, March 2. But obviously, you can search for any zip code in the entire country.
Tesla Takedown was started by Alex Winter, an actor and activist, and his production company Trouper, which has made similar call-to-action websites for various documentaries. Winter told Gizmodo over email Friday that a website like his allows for something that’s very decentralized, like the anti-Musk protests, to have a central hub for people to find information.
“This one worked far better than we imagined,” Winter wrote about the website. “In the short time it’s been up, we’ve had over 45,000 unique visitors who are spending real time on the site to read the information. It’s very encouraging.”
Winter says there are three goals with Tesla Takedown protests, sparked by Musk’s destruction of the country.
“First, to drive down the value of Tesla cars and Tesla stock, to force a shareholder vote of no-confidence in Musk, and to remove him from the company,” wrote Winter. “Second, to provide a simple and effective means of protest for the millions of angry citizens who don’t accept Musk’s illegal and destructive intrusion into the US government. And third, to create a means to disseminate information on Musk and DOGE’s criminal activities and help educate and inform the public.”
It should be noted that not every anti-Musk protest is going to be listed on Tesla Takedown. But that’s the nature of a massive movement against a guy with such diversified interests. For instance, there’s a protest at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, on Saturday that doesn’t appear on the Tesla Takedown website. Musk is the leader of half a dozen companies.
Musk has never been confirmed as a formal member of the government but has been appointed by Trump to oversee DOGE, which has gained access to federal agencies with the stated goal of shaving $2 trillion from the federal budget. That means thousands of people are now losing their jobs as the Department of Justice argues Musk isn’t even the administrator of DOGE right now. This is despite Musk essentially running cabinet meetings while suggesting that he alone gets to decide what gets funded in the government.
Congress is actually in charge of deciding what gets funded, but with Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate, they have no desire to stop Musk’s wrecking ball act. All of that leaves regular people on the street wondering what they can do to express their displeasure with Musk, since their elected representatives are doing nothing. One small way to do something, as some see it, is to show up at a protest against Musk.
“There is a growing movement to divest, Tesla stock is in a precipitous decline,” Winter told Gizmodo. “So we’re feeling bullish. Not cocky by any means, but hopeful that regular citizens can make a difference.”