Tesla Takedown, a weekly gathering of people peacefully unified in indignation towards Elon Musk, recently began at Tesla Rockville. According to an organizer, 750 activists assembled to protest along Rockville Pike outside the car dealership during the Global Day of Action on April 5, 2025. The organizer noted 500 in attendance on March 22 and 375 on March 15, displaying ongoing growth in the initiative that happens Saturdays beginning at 11am.
According to the recurring event’s website, this worldwide movement intends to oppose to what demonstrators view as injustices from Elon Musk, a top donor and senior advisor to President Donald Trump, and his flurry of actions. This includes Musk’s involvement with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The DOGE agency has imposed upon federal information system data and has led to widespread cuts in scientific research and the elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
The organizers, who use the site Action Network, urge their community to boycott, sell, and remove investment in Musk’s Tesla electric vehicles to “help save lives and protect our democracy,” according to their webpage.
Attachment options… The sign says, “Muzzle Musk.” (Photo Credit: Alana McCarthy Light)
Two protestors, whose names have been changed in this story for their safety and fear of retribution, supplied their opinions on the protest. The Advocate has decided to not publish the real names of the interviewees.
Briauna, a protester, college student, and employee at a federal agency detailed how the current administration affects her life. “I have friends that have been fired – some who haven’t been reinstated, others who have – but the impact of that has fallen everywhere. Also, I have friends at universities that have had their grants cut because of the new administration.”
She expressed worry about potential apathy within the younger generation of college students, stressing that, “this isn’t normal. I’ve been at a federal agency for 10 years now. If you’re unfamiliar with how things were prior to COVID or prior to Trump’s first administration, you might not know how poorly things have progressed.”
On working at a federal agency, Briauna commented that “we’re not supposed to have these public political stances. So we leave resistance to not get caught and get fired.”
“Clearly, especially in this area, people are frustrated with the current administration’s action,” she asserted. Additionally, Briauna finds hope in and is encouraged by the numbers of demonstrators at rallies like Tesla Takedown, as well as the chorus of cars passing by honking and cheering at protestors in support.
An additional protester, Lien, criticized her peers who were “too busy” to protest. The activist described them as taking life for granted by “just doing what a typical first-world person does on a weekend. You don’t see this as a problem until it affects you.”
Elon Musk’s involvement in the government, according to Lien, seems “absolutely inappropriate” and out of touch. “For [Trump] to pick [Elon] is two billionaires not even knowing what it’s like to struggle as a middle class, or as someone who is struggling with poverty. They don’t know what it’s like to go in and do what they are doing is totally inhumane.”
Lien’s family comes from South Vietnam. “What’s going on right now is getting closer and closer to what my family ran away from. We had to flee the country, otherwise we would have been executed – men, women, children, they don’t care – execution or re-education camps. Millions of Vietnamese died looking for freedom [because] they would rather die than be in a regime controlled by a small group of people in power that no one elected.”
“Educate the public about what other political asylees, like myself, endure in our country. Show Americans who never had to experience what we experience why we flee our homeland,” Lien urged, as she thinks Americans should “see what it’s like if this continues, and the hardships that they will endure in the future if we don’t stop this right now.”
Lien mentioned that Montgomery College educates tens of thousands of students and employs thousands of faculty members. She discussed feeling frustrated that many MC Rockville associates have not shown up at the protests, located less than three miles away from campus.
“Be more involved instead of people that just come to work and then go home. [Indifference] does come back to bite people,” Lien pleaded.
The Advocate reached out to Tesla Rockville for comment. The dealership has not responded.
Rockville, Maryland, a city in the DC metropolitan region, as well as home to many federal employees and agencies, continues to face the effects of shifting national politics. The weekly Tesla Takedown protests happening on one of Rockville’s most bustling commercial roads, Rockville Pike, provides space for those in opposition to effects of current political systems to use their voice.
