For the past two weeks, demonstrators have gathered outside Troy’s Somerset Collection holding handmade signs with slogans like “DETROIT VS MUSK,” “STOP FUNDING A FASCIST,” and “NO KINGS! NO NAZIS!”
The demonstrations support an international “Tesla Takedown” movement against billionaire Elon Musk and his meddling in politics. They have been held starting at 1 p.m. every Sunday on the sidewalk along Big Beaver Road in front of the mall’s north section, where Musk’s company Tesla has a showroom.
Organizer Hank Kennedy says the protests are meant to hit the electric vehicle automaker CEO where it counts — his enormous wealth.
“In observing the man, I don’t think he has any conscience, so an appeal there would have no effect,” Kennedy tells Metro Times. “But I think he will be forced to respond if his wealth is threatened.”
Valued at some $320 billion, Musk is the wealthiest person in the world and has used his influence to promote right-wing candidates like President Donald Trump. In return, Musk was named head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, where he has ordered the firing of tens of thousands of government workers and slashed social welfare programs — moves that have faced immediate backlash.
“By protesting at Tesla, what we hope to do is damage the company’s profitability,” Kennedy says.
The movement urges people to “Sell Your Teslas, Dump Your Stock, Stop Musk Now,” and the boycott could have an impact. Shares of Tesla stocks have plunged some 40% for the year so far, a wipeout of about $530 billion in value. Tesla vehicle sales have also declined worldwide, particularly in Europe. What was once seen as one of the most powerful corporations on the planet suddenly seems vulnerable.
Kennedy says he has been “pleasantly surprised at the turnout” for the Troy protests.
“I didn’t do a whole lot to spread the word,” he says. “I sent it along to friends and family members and some people I knew, and that Sunday, 70 people showed up. I was pretty impressed at that.”
He estimates nearly double that amount showed up the next week.
Certainly, the company’s problems began before the Tesla Takedown. In recent years, celebrities like Jack White and Sheryl Crow have publicly sold off their Teslas out of a disapproval with Musk’s politics and power. Tesla has also faced widespread product recalls (on Thursday, it announced a recall of more than 46,000 of its Cybertrucks due to shoddy production), lawsuits alleging its much-hyped “Autopilot” feature has caused deadly car crashes, and increased competition in the electric vehicle market. A longtime Tesla investor recently called for Musk to step down, saying his role in the government is distracting him from successfully leading the company.
In a recent appearance on Fox News, Musk appeared frazzled and on the verge of tears when asked how he could possibly manage to lead DOGE and still serve as CEO of Tesla, as well as the rocket company SpaceX, social media platform X, and tech company xAI.
In a sign of desperation, Musk and Trump even held a surreal joint press conference on the White House driveway earlier this month, where Trump purchased a red Tesla Model S and encouraged his supporters to follow suit.
Good luck getting conservatives, who have long been skeptical of EVs, to suddenly trade in their coveted Ford F-150s.
Kennedy believes much of the damage to the Tesla brand has been done by Musk himself.
“He’s just an eminently hateable figure,” Kennedy says. “He spreads these antisemitic conspiracy theories. He hates trans people. He’s anti-union. He reminds me a lot, in fact, of Henry Ford.”
In the 1920s, the Ford Motor Co. founder promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories in his newspaper The Dearborn Independent and the book The International Jew, of which Adolph Hitler was a fan.
Like Ford, Musk also became involved in the media, purchasing the influential social media platform Twitter and turning it into X, a right-wing propaganda machine.
But Kennedy believes Musk is arguably worse than Ford.
“Musk has way more pull with government,” Kennedy says. “Ford would not have gotten along with anyone [in the White House], certainly not [Franklin D.] Roosevelt.”
Kennedy says Musk is “probably the most famous Nazi in the world.”
In January, Musk shocked many when he appeared to make the Nazi salute at a Trump rally. While Musk has claimed the gesture was misinterpreted, the move inspired copycat salutes among other members of the far-right, including former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.
“He gave out those ‘Sieg Heils’ — I don’t care what anyone else says, that’s what they were,” Kennedy says. “He supported a neo-Nazi political party in Germany, the Alternative for Germany. What he’s doing to what’s left of our welfare and regulatory state … is basically stripping the country for parts in order that the rich might profit at our expense. So I think he’s a robber baron. I think he’s a fascist.”
Musk and Trump have claimed DOGE’s cuts are necessary to combat waste and fraud. However, purging government workers and replacing them with loyalists was a core idea laid forth in Project 2025, the blueprint for an authoritarian government takeover that Trump has tried to distance himself from, and a federal judge recently ruled that DOGE’s actions were “likely” unconstitutional. Critics have also called DOGE a conflict of interest since Musk’s companies are under investigation by multiple federal agencies.
Anger against Musk has even inspired vandalism of Tesla vehicles and dealerships, which Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi have absurdly labeled “domestic terrorism.”
Kennedy believes the “terrorism” allegations are an attempt to chill free speech, but he makes clear that he strongly condemns vandalism and violence.
“I think anything like that would be nothing but counterproductive,” he says. “I don’t want to give them any ammunition … I do my part to make sure that people know we’re there to protest peacefully and to not give Trump or the FBI or whoever any ammunition.”
While the protests have been monitored by mall security as well as the Troy Police Department, there have been no issues so far.
“The only thing they ever said was to make sure that we’re on the sidewalk,” Kennedy says. “I know my rights, so they really didn’t have to tell me that.”
Meanwhile, Kennedy says the response from the public has been “overwhelmingly supportive,” though the protesters have also been heckled by fans of Musk and Trump.
“There have been people who give you the finger, they yell ‘F-you’ out the window,” he says. The only violence he says he has seen so far is somebody throwing a cup of ice at the protesters.
“There was somebody at the last one I nicknamed ‘the secret agent man’ who was covered, I mean, head to toe, with goggles and a mask and a helmet,” Kennedy says. “He was filming us the whole time. I think he was obviously some sort of provocateur who wanted to get something on camera.”
Kennedy adds, “He accused me, personally, of either being paid by somebody or following a script.”
Allegedly, a Cybertruck driver also came to the protest looking for Kennedy when he was not there.
“Somebody told me about it afterwards and said that he asked for me by name and yelled that he hoped that I was getting paid for this,” says Kennedy, who maintains that the protest is a grassroots movement and not ordered or funded by anybody.
The threats against the Tesla protesters come as the Trump administration has also cracked down on demonstrations opposed to Israel’s U.S.-backed attacks in the Middle East, including the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student who was detained last month after leading campus protests in what critics have called a flagrant abuse of government power against free speech and due process. Khalil, a green card holder and expectant father, has not been charged with any crime.
“Am I intimidated? No,” Kennedy says. “Because that’s what it is. I think they want you to feel frightened so that you’ll shut up and be quiet.”
He says he’s emboldened by a recent poll suggesting most Americans now have a negative view of Musk, who has long enjoyed fawning and uncritical coverage in the mainstream media.
Musk has long painted himself as “green billionaire” savior who aims to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” — a myth that falls apart when he partners with someone like Trump, who has said that climate change is a “hoax.” This has alienated many of Tesla’s typically liberal customers, and cars emblazoned with bumper stickers reading “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy” have become an increasingly common sight.
Kennedy’s next protest is planned for 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 23. Additionally, the Tesla Takedown movement is calling for its “biggest day of action” yet, aiming for 500 demonstrations at Tesla showrooms around the world on Saturday, March 29. More information is available at teslatakedown.com.
“We have a righteous cause,” Kennedy says. “We need to just keep on applying the pressure.”
