Over 200 ‘Tesla Takedown’ protests planned this weekend after violent incidents

Some organizers said they’re concerned about the possibility of tense or hostile confrontations this weekend, including with drivers who might want to use their vehicles as weapons.

“That is scary,” said Connie James-Jenkin, who has helped to organize anti-Tesla protests near Chicago. “It’s scary that people would do that, and we did have a discussion about it,” she said, adding that she and other organizers discussed precautions such as standing back farther from the curb.

This weekend, organizers say they’re expecting bigger crowds of picketers, which they acknowledge may be more difficult to manage, as well as more pro-Musk counterprotesters, possibly increasing the risk of confrontations.

Trump supporters are mobilizing, too. NBC News found posts on Facebook and X for 10 counterprotests that his supporters are trying to organize, saying they wanted to counteract progressives and support a Trump ally. Some are billing their events as a “Tesla Shield.”

Terry Beck, a pro-Trump organizer in northern New Jersey, said she’s trying to line up a caravan of Trump-supporting vehicles including trucks and motorcycles to greet anti-Tesla protesters in Lawrenceville, near Trenton, on Saturday. Though not a long-standing Tesla supporter, she said she backs Musk because of his work for Trump.

“He’s proven his record. I look up to him. Every person should look up to him,” she said. She added that even if the Saturday protests are entirely peaceful, her opinion is that the anti-Tesla protesters are still “backing the crime” of vandalism committed by others.

Nationwide, at least 11 Tesla dealerships, charging stations and other facilities have been hit in reported attacks, including the incendiary devices found at an Austin, Texas, showroom Monday. The reported incidents have involved Molotov cocktails, graffiti, gunshots and suspected arson. Individual Tesla owners have also reported being targeted including with keying and graffiti. The Justice Department last week announced charges against three people, and this week the FBI said it was launching a task force to investigate attacks targeting Tesla.

Law enforcement officials say they have found no evidence that the attacks are coordinated despite such claims from Musk and Trump.

In addition, some anti-Tesla protesters have been arrested on trespassing allegations. On March 1, New York police arrested nine people at a Tesla location including six who sat at the front door and wouldn’t leave, according to the Daily News. Police in Berkeley, California, said they arrested a woman who was shouting profanities at a Tesla showroom on March 16 and refused to leave.

Last weekend, confrontations at Tesla dealerships led to the arrests of two Musk supporters on opposite sides of the country: the driver in West Palm Beach and a man with a bicycle in Berkeley. In the second incident, authorities detained the man, Ricardo Ruiz, on suspicion of exhibiting a weapon after he pulled out a stun gun and waved it toward anti-Tesla protesters, according to local news site The Berkeley Scanner and video of the incident Saturday.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Ruiz did not dispute pulling out the stun gun and said he was defending himself after he said anti-Tesla protesters aggressively blocked his path. He said he was a Trump voter who was at the protest to show support to Tesla.

“Businesses are hurting because of the commotion happening in the city,” he said. “I really thought that somebody should say something,” he added. He said he was released with a citation and a notice to appear in court.

For some protest organizers, the risk of pro-Trump drivers intentionally hitting protesters is top of mind after the West Palm Beach incident.

“We do worry a lot,” said Adam Sheridan, an organizer of anti-Tesla protests in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, east of Philadelphia. “We’re pretty aware that it’s a busy road and we’re pretty vulnerable.”

A map of planned demonstrations shows events in more than 30 states, as well as in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and other countries. Many but not all of the protests are clustered in coastal states such as California and Florida, where Teslas are somewhat common. And most of them are planned for the narrow strips of grass or sidewalk between Tesla showrooms and adjacent roads.

At the Cherry Hill showroom, protesters stand next to a state highway, and a video from a protest Saturday showed hundreds of demonstrators separated from the road by pennant flags on rope. Sheridan said he and other organizers also plan to use temporary garden fencing to keep people from spilling into the road, but he said there’s only so much demonstrators can do if a driver tries to use their vehicle as a weapon.

“We just try to be honest with people, but we also feel that we have to be out there,” he said.

Sheridan said in addition to supportive comments and honking from drivers, the protests he has attended have at times been met with ugly responses. He said at least five people in vehicles have responded with Nazi salutes, that one yelled “Heil Hitler” and that someone else threw a cup of ice water at the protest.

In a 10-page Google Doc, anti-Tesla organizers are sharing tips on how to stay safe, including not sharing personal contact information online, minimizing interactions with counterprotesters and filming any confrontations that do occur. At some locations, organizers say they’re appointing some protest attendees as designated “de-escalators” who wear neon vests.

“We are adamant that the Tesla Takedown protests are nonviolent and always will be nonviolent,” said Alice Hu, executive director of the environmental group Planet Over Profit. She has helped organize anti-Musk protests in New York and said she helped to write the tips on staying safe.

Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment on the protests. Musk, in a post on X this month, alleged that the Tesla Takedown protests were not authentic grassroots events but instead were organized by established advocacy groups. Musk also alleged this month, without evidence, that those involved in protests have also sold Tesla stock short and so benefit financially from a drop in the share price.

Musk has singled out one Seattle-based organizer in particular. Responding to a post on X that accused her, without evidence, of fueling vandalism, Musk said that she was “committing crimes,” again without evidence. She told NPR that Musk’s post was followed by violent threats from his followers.

In a Fox News interview on Thursday, Musk vowed to “go after” people speaking badly about Tesla, calling them worse than the alleged vandals. 

“The real problem is not the crazy guy that firebombs a Tesla dealership. It’s the people pushing the propaganda that caused that guy to do it. Those are the real villains here, and we’re going to go after them,” he said. 

Anti-Tesla organizers accuse Musk of trying to muddy the waters so that casual observers will confuse the peaceful protests with acts of violence.

“It seems like a pretty clear political strategy they’re making to conflate protests that are peaceful with sporadic incidents of vandalism,” Sheridan said.

At the Tesla dealership in Delray Beach, Florida, the company’s lawn sprinklers have doused protesters. Katz said he believes the spraying is a deliberate tactic and that he’s seen a Tesla employee adjust the sprinklers. The company did not respond to a request for comment on the sprinklers, and a person who answered the phone at the showroom said they were not authorized to answer questions from the media.

“While it’s inconvenient, it’s also 85 degrees out here. Everyone is standing out in the sun, so the sprinklers aren’t going to kill anybody,” Katz said. He said he plans to cover his protest sign in plastic wrap.

People organizing the anti-Tesla protests said in interviews that they are a mostly decentralized phenomenon. They said local residents take the lead as volunteers to set up the events, aided in some cases by established local or national organizations such as Indivisible, an anti-Trump political group based in Washington, D.C.

Indivisible said in a statement that people in its local chapters are “holding peaceful protests on the sidewalk, not damaging cars, and they’re speaking up because they’re concerned for our country. Elon Musk was not elected to run our government, and he’s making reckless decisions that could harm millions of us.”

James-Jenkin, a 56-year-old school librarian, said she decided to organize a picket of a Tesla showroom in Schaumburg, Illinois, northwest of Chicago, in late February after hearing about a protest elsewhere. She said she had never organized anything like it, despite her commitment to progressive causes.

“I had nowhere to put my anger and didn’t know what to do,” she said.

She said the extent of her initial organizing was filling out a form on a commonly used protest website, Action Network, so that the event would appear on the map of all anti-Tesla protests, and persuading her husband to join. She said she also did research on the website of the ACLU of Illinois about the rights of protesters. She said local police have been present for the two protests she organized, and she credits them with making sure there were no disputes with counterprotesters.

She said that now, with the 2026 midterm elections so far in the future, she sees the anti-Tesla protests as the best outlet for opposing Trump.

“It’s literally the only pressure point that we as citizens have at this point,” she said.

Helping the local activists is a national network that includes a map showing all the protests happening locally, a website, lists of suggested chants and group video calls. A public video call last week included interviews with actors John Cusack and Alex Winter.

Some organizers are hoping the protests will continue beyond this weekend, and that they’ll help jump-start a larger mass mobilization to resist Musk and Trump.

“We’re seeing a moment now where incredibly powerful institutions like the Democratic Party are not standing up to the Trump administration,” Hu said. “We think it’s important that the people rise up and that the people meet the moment.”