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The Tesla dealership in Palo Alto became a scene of protest on Sunday afternoon as more than 400 demonstrators lined two sides of the block to wave signs and chant slogans directed at company CEO Elon Musk, who is playing a leading role in the Trump Administration’s efforts to slash programs and reduce the federal workforce.
The demonstration brought activists, politicians and residents from throughout the Peninsula to the El Camino Real block in south Palo Alto. Folk singer and protest icon Joan Baez made the rounds on both sides of El Camino to cheers from the demonstrators, who included residents from Sunnyvale, Redwood City, Mountain View and other area communities.
“It’s a moment to do what we can,” Baez said, when asked what brought her to the event.
The demonstration was organized by Sally Lieber, a former state Assembly member and Mountain View council member who currently serves on the state Board of Equalization, and the group Together We Will, a chapter of Indivisible, an organization that supports progressive causes.
About 150 people initially showed up to the area in front of the Tesla dealership at 1 p.m., when the event began. The attendance more than doubled within the hour as both sides of the block filled with demonstrators, who also spilled over onto the median island and later to the adjacent block north of El Camino Way.
Lieber said that she helped organize the event because she wanted to give people a chance to take action now and not wait until the midterm election, when it might be too late to restore some of the programs now being dismantled.
“We wanted to provide a platform for people in the community to come out and speak their minds and also make sure people are doing everything they can to mobilize and organize before Musk gets further, before Trump gets further, before JD Vance gets further,” Lieber said. “We have to fight for our rights. We can’t take them for granted anymore.”
Sunnyvale resident Bruce Hahne, an organizer with Together We Will, said he was encouraged by the turnout he had seen both in Palo Alto and during a Saturday demonstration in Sunnyvale, where about 150 people showed up to protest Musk’s actions. The core message of the demonstrations, he said, is to signal “defense of democracy and opposition to the coup.”
Hahne described the actions of Musk and his newly created task force, the Department of Government Efficiency, to slash funding for federal programs and access sensitive data as clearly illegal.
“We need to think of the executive branch as just the executor,” Hahne said. “Their job is to follow the financial instructions of Congress. When Congress says money goes to EPA, money goes to EPA. When Congress says money goes to Head Start, it goes to Head Start. Elon Musk does not get to cut off those programs simply because he feels like it. That’s got to stop.”
The Palo Alto demonstration is part of a growing trend of protests at Tesla dealerships across the country. Similar events have occurred in Manhattan, Berkeley, San Francisco, Pasadena and other communities, according to social media and reports from the Verge and other publications. While some of these “Tesla Takeover” events have attracted just a few dozen protesters, the attendance was considerably larger in Palo Alto, a city that formerly housed Tesla’s corporate headquarters and that is currently home to the company’s engineering headquarters.
Demonstrators carried signs that read, “CURB YOUR DOGE,” “NO ONE VOTED 4 MUSK” and ‘STOP THE COUP” and chanted, “This is what democracy looks like” as cars streamed by and honked their horns.
“What has gratified me is there’s been people driving here in Teslas, honking their horns and giving thumbs up,” said retired Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell, who was at the rally. “They know this is not good. Elon Musk has no business doing what he is doing. I think it’s criminal – and look at all the people who agree.”
Another message of the demonstration was that “the real Silicon Valley doesn’t support Trump,” said Lenny Siegel a former Mountain View City Council member. While the national press often suggests that Trump has made a deal with Silicon Valley, his deal is only with a handful of billionaires, Siegel said. He noted that about 80% of the voters in Palo Alto and Mountain View voted for Kamala Harris for president.
According to registrar data, Harris received 68% of the votes in Santa Clara County and 73% in San Mateo County.
“These are the people who make Silicon Valley tick,” Siegel said, alluding to the crowd around him. “Getting that into the national news is a struggle because most people who write about Silicon Valley write about billionaires.”
It’s difficult to come up with a strategy to resist Trump in the Palo Alto area, where members of the Congressional delegation already hold similar views, Siegel said. He encouraged people to reach out to their friends and family members in other communities that have more conservative leanings and get them to call their representatives.
Palo Alto City Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims also attended the Sunday demonstration and held a “RESIST” sign as she stood on the median island with a line of supporters and encouraged cars to honk. Many obliged.
“We’re here today because Elon Musk, this unelected figure, clearly has the ear of the president whose priorities appear to be driving much of what President Trump does,” Lythcott-Haims said, “Here we stand as Palo Altans and saying, ‘In this democracy, the only thing we have is our voice.’ You see hundreds of people out here using their voices to state what they believe in.
“We are all rightfully concerned that our democracy is being dismantled brick by brick.”
Ventura residents Angela Dellaporta and Claire Elliott both said they were concerned about the massive cuts that Musk and his aides are imposing on the federal government. Dellaporta held up a sign protesting the Trump Administration’s recent cuts to U.S. Agency for International Development. Elliott voiced broader concerns about America’s growing inequality.
“A lot of it is just the rich getting richer. It’s been going that way for so many years and this is just taking it to a whole new level,” Elliott said.
These people have no clue. I think they should concentrate on how the democrat’s policies have turned Palo Alto into a Third World country. Maybe they should have cleaned up the trash that is all over the place.