Musk fans accuse #TakedownTesla movement of astroturfing outrage after nationwide protests
The supposed grassroots #TakedownTesla movement has been accused of being anything but independent, with Elon Musk and his supporters pinning the blame on a major Democratic donor.
The group, which spearheaded approximately 50 protests this weekend at Tesla dealerships around the country, aims to harm Elon Musk’s image and disrupt his political influence.
“We're tanking Tesla's stock price to stop Musk,” the site proclaims.
But in the wake of the big weekend, it is also facing accusations of being a “well-funded, tightly coordinated campaign led by national political organizations,” paying protesters to fake outrage over Musk and Tesla.
This practice is known as astroturfing—where protest groups masquerade as a spontaneous, grassroots movement—while actually being sponsored and directed by outside interests.
Protests against Tesla have been cropping up since January, but the number of attendees spiked as part of Tesla Takedown’s “global day of action,” with one protest in Berkeley, California reportedly drawing over 1,000 attendees.
The movement isn’t limited to the U.S., with #TakedownTesla organizing demonstrations in Denmark, Finland, and the United Kingdom.
Musk has been a key advisor in the second Trump administration, heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has made massive cuts to federal services, drawing serious backlash.
That has, in turn, prompted anger and violence toward his flagship company, Tesla, with reports of Cybertrucks and other vehicles being vandalized.
On #TakedownTesla’s website, its mission statement reads, “Elon Musk is destroying democracy around the world, and he's using the fortune he built at Tesla to do it. We are taking action at Tesla to stop Musk's illegal coup.”
But amid the weekend’s protests, Musk asked if #TakedownTesla was paying its protesters.
Musk’s insinuation led his supporters down a rabbit hole, who determined, without evidence, that the effort must have been funded by outside money aimed at harming Musk.
In response to Musk's question, a former Wall Street Journal reporter pushed a thread outing the organizations she believed were behind the protests, claiming the effort was entirely inorganic.
Asra Nomani wrote she attended a protest and saw “familiar faces” from “Indivisible and the Fairfax County Democratic Party, shouting for you to be deported as they stood outside the Tesla dealership. I wondered too who is organizing and funding the protests nationwide.”
Nomani went on to claim that “24 organizations and counting are funding and organizing the #TeslaTakedown protests and leading the very partisan propaganda campaign against Tesla.”
But of particular interest was the organization Indivisible, which has organized protests against Tesla.
That lit a fire under Musk fans, as Musk previously claimed the organization was being financed by prominent tech billionaire and Democratic activist Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn.
Hoffman denied the accusation back then, but Musk fans revived it this weekend in the wake of the Tesla Takedown protests.
One supporter, reacting to screenshots of Indivisible organizing protesters, posted on X, “Reid Hoffman ...? Major donor of Indivisible, organizer behind the protests. Up to $200 reimbursement for protestors? Bread crumbs, bread crumbs…”
“Reid will have many layers between himself and the organizations attacking me, but the probability is 100% that Reid is funding them. 100%,” Musk replied.
Hoffman responded, though, claiming that people didn’t need to be paid to dislike Musk.
"The probability many, many people don't like you? 100%. Probability that Tesla polls need to be rigged by bots to cover up the fact that people don't like you? 100%. Probability you'd rather make shit up about me than fix your problems? 100%."
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