On Saturday, March 29th, 2025, around 100 protestors gathered outside of the Natick Mall. Lined up along the intersection of Mall Road and Speen Street, they chanted and raised hand-made signs: “No one elected Elon.” “Stand up, fight back.” “Stop funding Musk’s oligarchy.” The demonstration—which was organized and sponsored by the Metro Boston Indivisible Coalition (MBIC), a political activist organization that champions the preservation of democracy—was one of over two hundred that took place globally, all as part of the growing anti-Elon Musk “Tesla Takedown” campaign (#TeslaTakeDown).

Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and senior advisor to President Donald Trump, is facing severe pressure from the public as a result of his role as the de facto head of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). So far, he has slashed funding for agencies like the Department of Education and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), cut tens of thousands of federal jobs, cancelled DEI grants, and more. Though Musk and his associates claim that these cuts are aimed at reducing U.S. debt and ending what he refers to as “tyranny of the bureaucracy,” many critics have observed that DOGE primarily targets programs that Trump and his allies do not support, arguing that the agency instead operates in service of a far-right political agenda. #TeslaTakeDown urges those who have financially supported Musk’s empire to sell their Tesla vehicles or shares of stock in order to compromise his primary source of wealth, putting pressure on Musk—and Trump, by extension—to end the nationwide power grab that DOGE represents.

Thanks to public backlash from movements like “Hands Off!” and #TeslaTakeDown, Tesla sales have already plunged 13% in the first three months of this year, constituting both the biggest sales decline in Tesla history and the company’s worst sales numbers in three years. As a result, in early March, Trump used the South Lawn of the White House as a temporary showroom to broadcast his endorsement of Tesla, hoping to remedy its sharp decline in sales as a favor to Musk. However, Trump’s actions have not restored the company’s previous sales numbers, and government ethics experts have questioned the legality of the endorsement.

The Natick protest is one of nine total demonstrations that took place across Massachusetts that day, including in Watertown, Dedham, Worcester, Norwell, and Boston. In Watertown, two protestors were hit by the side mirror of a pickup truck during the demonstration, and police have not commented on whether or not the incident was accidental. In Natick, police patrolled the area, but the protest remained civil.

“There’s a lot of intimidation right now,” said Jeanne, an MBIC member who helped organize the Natick demonstration. “We need our fear to give us courage and not to give us cowardice.”

J. Michael Gilbreath, a member of the Wayland Democratic Committee, agrees. “It’s just time the people got very visible and very loud in opposition.”

Information obtained from the Natick Report, Wayland Student Press, Boston.com, CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS, ABC, and AP News.