'Elon is poison': Hundreds protest Musk at S.F. Tesla dealership on global day of demonstrations

A weekly protest of Elon Musk outside San Francisco’s Tesla showroom on Van Ness Avenue saw its largest crowd yet Saturday afternoon as the national Tesla Takedown movement sought to surround all U.S. locations with demonstrators.

Hundreds of protesters descended on both sides of Van Ness Avenue between O’Farrell and Ellis streets, as well as the median between bus lanes, organizer Patty Moddelmog said. The protests have  been happening each Saturday from noon to 2 p.m.

Moddelmog said each week news of firings, canceled contracts and work to dismantle entire agencies by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have motivated people to show up at protests over the Tesla CEO’s power and influence within the White House.

Concerns over Musk’s offer to hand out $1 million checks to Wisconsin voters days before a tight Supreme Court election there — a move being challenged by the state attorney general — attracted many new protesters Saturday, she said.

The demonstration was also larger than usual because it was co-sponsored by Planet Over Profit, a youth-led climate change advocacy group based in New York that is hoping to start a Bay Area chapter, Moddelmog said.

A nearby San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency officer said he saw at least 280 demonstrating near the corner he was monitoring.

Saturday’s demonstration was part of a nationwide push to protest outside all 277 Tesla showrooms in the U.S., as well as hundreds of others in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, posted on Bluesky about the “huge” protest, accompanied by a video showing hundreds of demonstrators with signs criticizing Musk and President Donald Trump. Wiener noted that the demonstration was right along a busy Muni corridor, where the 49-Van Ness bus runs, calling it a “chef’s kiss” given that Musk “hates transit so much.”

“Elon is poison,” Wiener posted. “DOGE is poison.”

Protests at Tesla showrooms across the Bay Area have been going on for months, with many growing in size each week. In the South Bay, near where the electric car company began, protests are often along roads that Teslas pass through every few seconds.

At the weekly Sunnyvale protest, Florence Chan has tried to discourage passersby heading into the showroom on El Camino Real from buying Teslas. Chan said she is the only one on her block in Los Altos without a Tesla in the driveway. In Silicon Valley, Teslas have long been popular with drivers for environmental reasons, she noted.

But now, many of her progressive, Tesla-owning friends are feeling regret that their electric vehicles associate them with Musk.

The Trump administration has escalated threats against demonstrators targeting Tesla dealerships. But the threats don’t appear to have deterred many Bay Area protesters, with some organizers and attendees saying the rallies have grown since the escalating rhetoric about the protests.

Meredith Moseley, a high school English teacher, first joined the Sunnyvale protest after the threat from Trump to label recent “violence” against Tesla dealerships as domestic terrorism. Moseley was not scared of the threat, but further motivated to protest.

“Well, now I’ve got to go,” she said. “I know what I’m doing on Saturday afternoon.”

Reach Molly Burke (she/her): molly.burke@hearst.com; Bluesky: @mollyburke.bsky.social