A small group of protestors assembled outside a Tesla showroom in Stockport, Gr Manchester on Saturday 15 March 2025. What was their message and what do they hope to achieve? Photos by the author.
A global movement to undermine Tesla
Elon Musk’s popularity with the UK public would not make good reading for the world’s richest man. A fame rating of 98% recorded by YouGov suggests nearly all Britons have heard of Musk – but his approval rating of only 26% (compared to 44% disapproving with 28% neutral) fits with a further YouGov finding that both Britons and Germans disapprove of Musk’s interventions in their nations’ domestic politics. Musk’s close relationship with US President Donald Trump and findings by US courts that he has acted illegally by dismissing US federal government employees resulted in one US poll finding 69% disapproval of his actions.
Edward Niedermeyer is the author of a 2019 book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors which uses a combination of original research, anonymous insider accounts and the opinions of industry analysts to detail the first 15 years of Tesla as a company. The book received positive reviews with Niedermeyer’s insights into the workings of the auto industry praised by the Los Angeles Times book reviewer. Niedermeyer now believes that Musk is a threat to US democracy and that Musk must be taken down. The mechanism to do this is to undermine Tesla – the so-called “Tesla Takedown”.
The significance of Tesla in Musk’s empire
Musk has an extensive business network but Tesla is uniquely important to him. Most of Musk’s companies – The Boring Company, Neuralink, X (Twitter), xAI and SpaceX – are privately held. Even if they were turning over significant amounts of money – which in the case of The Boring Company and Neuralink is itself doubtful – it is difficult for Musk to liquidate his paper wealth from these companies.
SpaceX may have been founded with the noble goal of making space launches cheaper and thereby making it possible for humanity to colonise other planets such as Mars, but from what limited information we have it isn’t profitable. It has been through many different capital investment rounds – quite possibly because investors believe Musk’s hype rather than because they understand the company’s business fundamentals – and much of its capacity is used to launch its own StarLink satellites.
Tesla is the only Musk company that is both profitable and liquid – being a publicly traded company it is far easier for Musk to convert his Tesla paper wealth into cash. Musk has two primary means to achieve this: he can either outright sell his Tesla stock on the open market or he can offer it as collateral to lenders. Selling his stock is problematic for Musk: it would eventually cause him to lose control of Tesla and it would also damage his reputation as a successful entrepreneur. Musk’s reputation and the impression he gives that Tesla can keep growing as a company are two of the reasons why Tesla’s stock is so overpriced – it does not and never will pay a dividend and the company’s underlying financials are starting to look shaky. He would also have to pay capital gains tax on the proceeds of stock sales.
Making Tesla a toxic brand
Niedermeyer observes that Tesla’s stock price is sustained by both Musk’s image as a successful entrepreneur but also by the hype and projections Musk offers for future Telsa products and services. The most famous example is his continued promise of Tesla vehicles’ full self-driving capabilities and by extension products such as “robotaxis” and “robovans”. Musk now claims Tesla is an AI and robotics company and that in the future almost unlimited revenue growth will come from products such as humanoid robots.
The way to damage Musk, argues Niedermeyer, is to cause Tesla’s stock price to fall, ideally to an extent where banks start to call in their loans secured on Tesla stock. In turn, the means to achieve this is to damage Tesla as a brand such that existing and prospective customers stay away from it. If this starts to take effect, he argues, Wall Street will change its view of Tesla stock from being one whose value can only increase to a stock that should be sold off as not worth holding. He coined the hashtag #TeslaTakedown to describe this plan.
Tesla Takedown reaches Gr Manchester
In some markets Tesla sales are already dropping very sharply, but in the UK and Ireland Tesla sales increased in February 2025. This may be down to attractive lease deals combined with impending changes to UK car tax rules from April 2025 penalising electric vehicles registered after that date. Whilst the longer term trend is obviously unknown, in the immediate term there is work for activists to do in the UK.
Adapting Niedermeyer’s proposed strategy of demonstrating outside Tesla showrooms, a small group of activists staged the first Greater Manchester Tesla Takedown outside Tesla’s showroom in Stockport at 11:00 on Saturday March 15 2025. I attended to report for North West Bylines.
It seemed the Tesla staff – who the activists present were quick to stress they had no personal quarrel with – had taken notice of the proposed demonstration, having presumably heard of it via social media. The showroom, normally open on a Saturday as weekends are often the busiest times for car dealers – was shut with a single security guard patrolling inside the premises. A notice in the window also advised customers that the Supercharger facilities would be closed that day. I personally hope this is because they wanted to save their customers the embarrassment of being subject to the protest rather than because they feared damage to the installation, as happened in the US recently.
The messaging and reception
The activists I spoke to agreed with my suggestion that Musk deserves credit for popularising electric vehicles and that the technology he helped bring to market had brought significant environmental benefits. But they felt he was over-reaching himself and abusing his wealth and power. They gathered peacefully on public land outside the showroom, on a main road, displaying placards expressing opposition to Musk and advising Tesla owners to consider the implications of their purchase.
At one stage two Greater Manchester Police officers attended, probably having been summoned by the security guard on duty inside the showroom. They quickly departed without disrupting the protest once it became obvious the demonstration was peaceful and non-disruptive. I attended for some 45 minutes, during which a steady stream of passing cars (and even one bus!) honked their horns in support of the protest. Despite the notice in the showroom, the on-site Superchargers were operational as a couple of Tesla drivers pulled in to charge their vehicles and it was clear this was working. Their response to the protest was mostly embarrassed silence with little or no interaction. As one protestor observed to me, it was unfair to take their frustrations out directly on Tesla drivers as they may have had sound reasoning for their choice of vehicle.
The next steps
Every protest starts out small, almost by definition. One legitimate criticism that could be levelled at this first event was the sparse attendance – some 15 people at the height of the demonstration. Niedermeyer intends for these demonstrations to become regular, ongoing events as a means for not just US citizens incurring the major force of the Trump-Musk axis to vent their feelings but as a global movement.
The degree of support from passing motorists suggests there is ample scope to increase attendance – protests seem to rely on a “critical mass” being attained after which psychological feelings of “belonging” may encourage many more people to attend once it’s clear they are not alone in their concerns. The protests must remain peaceful but convey the core message in a clear and understandable manner. Those sympathetic to this cause may wish to monitor the official Tesla Takedown website for information on future protest dates and locations.
