Anti-DOGE protesters target Musk’s Tesla

Demonstrators gathered outside Tesla stores across the US on Saturday to protest the automaker’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, and his push to slash government spending on behalf of President Donald Trump.

The demonstrations are part of a growing backlash in North America and Europe to Musk’s disruptive role in Washington.

Critics of Trump and Musk hope to discourage and stigmatise purchases of Tesla, the electric car company that is the world’s most valuable automaker. Liberal groups for weeks have organised anti-Tesla protests in hopes of galvanising opposition to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and energising Democrats still demoralized by Trump’s November victory.

“We can get back at Elon,” said Nathan Phillips, a 58-year-old ecologist from Newton, Massachusetts, who was protesting in Boston on Saturday. “We can impose direct economic damage on Tesla by showing up at showrooms everywhere and boycotting Tesla and telling everyone else to get out, sell your stocks, sell your Teslas.”

Musk is taking direction from Trump to slash federal spending and sharply reduce the workforce, arguing that Trump’s victory gave the president and him a mandate to restructure the US government. DOGE officials have swiftly gained access to sensitive databases, directed thousands of federal job cuts, cancelled contracts and shut down sections of the government, including the US AID.