• by Tanya Gazdik , February 20, 2025

Photo courtesy of Electrek

Not since the anti-Asian fervor of the 1980s has an automaker been under such fierce attack due to politics. 

"An autoworker rally against foreign cars in 1981 featured the demolition of an old Toyota Corolla where the weapon of choice wasn’t a baseball bat but a sledgehammer,” according to The Detroit News. “In 1982, a Chinese American man [Vincent Chin] was beaten to death with a baseball bat in the middle of Woodward Avenue” in Highland Park, an enclave of Detroit, by two autoworkers. 

Now, demonstrators are staging peaceful protests at Tesla facilities to register their unhappiness with the actions of founder and CEO Elon Musk, a South African-born billionaire who has been given enormous and seemingly unrestricted power by the White House.   

“With sales crashing and the board selling, it looks like some insiders are finally waking up,” according to Electrek. ”Tesla is being targeted by protests organized at its stores around the globe. The demonstrations … appear to be a grassroots movement without a clear goal or leadership. The protestors are calling it the ‘Tesla Takeover.’”

The movement seems to have started on Bluesky. Several bigger accounts on the post-Twitter social media platform, including Anonymous, the infamous hacker group, have promoted the effort.

Ralph Ballart, a long-time Tesla owner, shared his personal reason for wanting to boycott Tesla.

“I have a 2015 Model S and the only reason I want Tesla sales to decline is to get Musk out as CEO and get someone like JB Straubel to replace him,” Ballart told Electrek. 

Straubel is a Tesla co-founder and long-time CTO who left in 2019 to found Redwood Materials. More recently, he joined Tesla’s board of directors.

Protesters swarmed in front of Tesla stores and charging stations in dozens of cities across the U.S. last weekend, armed with posters reading, ‘No one voted for Musk,’ ‘Go steal data on Mars,’ and more, according to Fast Company. 

On Feb. 19, federal workers headed to Tesla stores—along with other locations, including a SpaceX site and federal buildings—to protest cuts to vital services and mass layoffs. 

“More protests at Tesla will follow this weekend, all aimed at Musk’s work to control swaths of the government with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency,” per Fast Company. 

Meanwhile, consumers are dumping their Teslas left and right in protest against Musk. 

Notably, some celebrities are unloading their vehicles. Musician Sheryl Crow recently sold her Tesla. 

“She posted a video that showed her waving goodbye to the electric vehicle as it was driven away on a flatbed,” reported ABC7 in Los Angeles. "In the caption Crow wrote, ‘My parents always said ... you are who you hang out with. There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with. So long Tesla.’”

Crow donated the proceeds to National Public Radio, which she wrote "is under threat by President Musk, in hopes that the truth will continue to find its way to those willing to know the truth.”

The tycoon has earned the moniker “President Musk” from those who see his actions as an overreach, according to ABC7.