Protesters gathered outside Tesla dealerships across the US on Saturday in response to Elon Musk’s efforts to shred government spending under the president, Donald Trump.
Groups of demonstrators up to 100-strong gathered outside the electric carmaker’s showrooms in cities including New York, Seattle, Kansas City and across California. Organisers said the protests took place in dozens of locations.
While the protests were scattered, they highlighted the risks to the car company of Musk’s close association with Trump’s radical rightwing agenda. Many of the protesters carried placards likening the Trump administration to Nazis – a characterisation that Musk has previously emphatically denied.
Musk is leading the US president’s “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, its name deriving from an internet dog meme. Doge’s actions, rapidly dismantling government agencies and firing federal workers en masse across the US, have been criticised as illegal by some constitutional experts.
Some Tesla investors have queried whether Musk’s association with the Trump administration, including spending more than $200m on the presidential election campaign, will dent its sales – particularly in liberal areas of the US. Places including California have tended to be the biggest markets for electric cars in the US, while the Republican party and the Trump administration are actively opposed to the technology.
on Saturday. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA
American musician Sheryl Crow posted a video of herself on Saturday waving goodbye to a Tesla being towed away on the Instagram social network. She said she had sold the car and donated money to US National Public Radio station (NPR), which “is under threat by President Musk”.
“My parents always said … you are who you hang out with,” she wrote. “There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with. So long Tesla.”
People within the Tesla business insist the company is separate from its chief executive. However, its surging valuation – thanks to previously fast-growing sales – has played a key role in building Musk’s wealth used to fund Trump’s election campaign.
Shares in Tesla account for about a third of Musk’s wealth, according to Bloomberg. His ownership of private rocket company SpaceX accounts for another third, while the rest is linked to stakes in xAI, the X social network, the Boring Company, a tunnelling business, and brain-computer interface company Neuralink. Musk has used his shares in Tesla and SpaceX to secure personal loans worth billions of dollars.
Tesla reported its first ever annual decline in sales in 2024, amid tough times for the global car industry. It is not yet clear whether Musk’s rightwing politics contributed to that decline, and the company could conceivably make up for lost leftwing customers with new enthusiasts on the right.
Some commentators have linked a steep decline in Tesla sales in Germany with his December declaration of support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). German Tesla sales fell 60% year-on-year in January, although delivery schedules can be affected by other factors beyond demand.
Tesla could also be vulnerable in other ways to political backlash. In the UK, Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, this week said the Labour government should impose tariffs on Tesla cars in retaliation for the White House imposing levies on steel imports.
Tesla was approached for comment.
