Tesla was hit by a wave of protests across dozens of its stores in North America this weekend. With sales crashing and the board selling, it looks like some insiders are finally waking up.
As we reported last week, a grassroots movement has sprung to organize protests against Elon Musk at Tesla stores around North America.
The protests appear to have been quite successful, with primarily peaceful demonstrations in front of Tesla stores.
Here’s an example in front of Tesla’s Minneapolis store:
Happening now: Protesters at the Tesla service center just outside of Minneapolis. Signs reading “Unplug Mad King Musk”, “This car runs on facsism”, “Who buys cars from a nazi?”, “Say no to doge”, “Don’t buy swasticars, BAD DOGE!”.
Similar protests happened at dozens of Tesla stores for hours in an attempt to disrupt sales and protest Musk’s meddling in politics.
Tesla’s Manhattan showroom saw one of the biggest protests:
While most protests were peaceful and lawful, some vandalism did happen, with images of Tesla stores getting graffitied with anti-fascism phrases.
Groups supporting the protests, like Anonymous, say it is just the beginning and plan to keep putting pressure on Tesla to, in turn, put pressure on Musk.
As we previously reported, Tes
14 Comments
nashashmi
Repeating this again: Tesla would be more successful without Elon Musk … leading any longer.
denverllc
I count 14 (maybe 15?) people in that first protest photo.
the_duke
There's a reason most CEOs and billionaires try to stay out of the spotlight and try to influence things behind the scenes instead.
We'll see how things turn out for Musk in a few years.
At least Starlink, and hence Spacex, won't be affected too much, the service is too valuable for the US military, various industries (aviation, maritime) and also private customers as long as no credible alternative is in sight.
twilo
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eigart
The stock price is fucked if Musk leaves. The car business might survive, though.
I have no faith they can deliver on FSD/optimus/AI/cheap model. But with SEC kneecapped, I think the next rabbit out of Elon’s hat will be spectacular.
mrtksn
Like 2 years ago I wrote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34158126
>Many people don't like what the owners of Chick-fil-A are up to but apparently they do really good chicken at fair price so people keep buying it anyway.
I would guess that Tesla is losing the premium they can put to their prices and that is pushing Tesla value to a transactional value. No more apologists for the build quality or features that are pay now get it next year(every year, next year), if Tesla makes good cars and sell them at good price people will buy and if they don't people won't
I still think its true, if Tesla makes good cars they will sell at fair value(no more premium to save the planet). In Turkey for example, no one is protesting Tesla even though there were huge protests in support of Palestine. Musk is literally in the US government, literally was the biggest supporter of Trump who announced ethnic cleansing intentions and no one in Turkey associate the brand with this stuff. For some reason they associate Coca-Cola, Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King etc but never Tesla. Influencers close to the organizations doing the protests even work with Tesla on promotional content. I tried mentioning this to see what they think in automotive forums, it gained no traction. Tesla's are good value in Turkey thanks to the tax breaks on electric cars, no one wants to hear the political aspects.
thih9
> senior managers said that they believe “the company would be better off if Musk resigned.”
Would that even help at this point? The association between musk and tesla would still remain – e.g. musk’s ownership of tesla shares is a pop culture topic at this point.
janesvilleseo
Interesting, this post was removed (shadow delisted). I don't see it on the in the first 3 pages anymore after it was at number 11 just a few minutes ago.
nprateem
Meh for every 1 person who cares, 10 people don't. Plus the media loves a fall from grace story.
I think they'll be fine once the new model is out.
wtcactus
Oh, please. These are just normal protests from the left every time they don't get exactly what they demand. They are literary less than 20 people in those pictures.
It doesn't affect Tesla, and, well, it's 2025 and nobody really cares any more.
On a side note, I grew up when Bush Jr. was in power. I remember the headlines (and how I, pressed by society, believed in them) on how he was a dictator, how his second term would surely consolidate his power and end democracy in the USA, how he was "the antichrist" (yes, there were actual headlines at the time calling Bush Jr. the antichrist).
Bottom line is that, this discourse, inspired by the propaganda machine from old Soviet Era, that the left follows, is old news. People have woken up – much because of social networks – and they are not going back to being controlled by the media.
protimewaster
I think one of the problems Tesla is going to have is that those who agree with Musk are often conservatives who are on average not very interested in buying any electric car. And those who are interested in buying an electric car are more likely to be liberal and dislike Musk.
762236
I can't wait to buy the new Model Y. Fantastic car. If I were to choose products based on the CEO's behavior outside the company (vs their behavior running the company), I'd have no time left to live, and I wouldn't be buying anything from communist and other authoritarian countries.
dikaio
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akagusu
Incredible how everything about Musk is been censored and people don't care.