The work of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and the role of multi-billionaire Elon Musk, have been some of the most dominant storylines of the second Trump administration.
Although the White House claims he has no formal authority over its efforts, DOGE has become practically synonymous with Musk. He’s appeared at Cabinet meetings and Oval Office briefings detailing DOGE’s work.
Meanwhile, DOGE has slashed workforces and funding at places like the NIH, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the FDA — just to name a few.
The cuts have generated weeks of controversy, and now some Americans are taking to the streets. Specifically, the streets outside of Tesla facilities.
Musk derives much of his wealth from his job as CEO of Tesla, and a confederation of protesters using the hashtag “TeslaTakedown” has begun targeting Tesla locations across the country. Here in Tempe, they come out every Saturday at the Tesla Service Center to voice their disapproval of Musk’s relationship with the administration.
Sophia Marjanovic, a volunteer organizer for the local TeslaTakedown group, joined The Show to discuss what they’re protesting.
Full conversation
SOPHIA MARJANOVIC: People are protesting the fact that Elon Musk, who gets the majority of his wealth from Tesla, is disrupting our government. And as long as he continues disrupting our government, we are going to keep protesting his buildings that where the majority of his wealth comes in until he decides to back off.
SAM DINGMAN: So fair to say the protests are against him as an individual and the role he’s playing in the government, not necessarily against Tesla specifically as a company or as a vehicle.
MARJANOVIC: Correct.
DINGMAN: OK, and the idea is let's hit where it hurts so to speak.
MARJANOVIC: Yeah. In classic protests throughout the United States, in order to get people with decision making power to listen is to hit them often where their money is, and that’s what we’re doing. This is the richest man in the world, and he has bought his way into our government.
DINGMAN: Let me ask you, when you say he’s bought his way into the government, what specifically are you referring to?
MARJANOVIC: Just because he paid, was it something like $270 million to Trump's campaign.
DINGMAN: So when you say he’s kind of bought his way in, you’re referring to the campaign contributions that he has made?
MARJANOVIC: Correct, yeah to the Trump campaign to help him get elected. And just because he paid that much, he is allowed to go into our government without really an official role.
DINGMAN: I believe he’s technically a special government employee.
MARJANOVIC: Whatever that means, I don't even know what that means.
DINGMAN: Let me ask you, the folks that are coming out to these Tesla takedown protests. How many people are there every Saturday, if I am mistaken. How many people are you seeing come out on a regular basis?
MARJANOVIC: At first, when we first started out, it was about 50 people, at our first protests. Since then it’s been over 100. This last protest, it was close to 300.
And it’s an easy thing to get involved in. Just come out and hold a sign and do some chants for an hour or two, and do it on a weekly basis. It applies that pressure, that constant pressure that is needed in order to get a decision maker to change your mind about what they’re doing.
DINGMAN: Well, so take us there a little bit. What are these signs? What are these chants? What is the message at a Tesla takedown protest?
MARJANOVIC: Our main chant that everyone knows is, “hey hey, ho ho, Elon Musk has got to go.” But a lot of signs also say, “no one elected Musk.” People are upset and concerned about the fact that they may be losing their veteran assistance benefits, their Social Security benefits. People have lost their jobs. People are worried about losing their pensions.
DINGMAN: And what has the reaction been from people at the service center who are just there as Tesla customers or Tesla employees?
MARJANOVIC: We notice people going in and doing business as usual. There has not actually been a whole lot of engagement. We have had people come and talk to us. There have been some people who’ve made threats.
DINGMAN: These are Tesla customers or employees who have made threats?
MARJANOVIC: No, these are people who I guess just don’t like us protesting.
DINGMAN: OK, I see. What are these threats? What are the threats?
MARJANOVIC: Some, I can just remember one I witnessed this past weekend. One man came and he said, “Well, I’m going to have a bunch of people roll up with coal rollers.” I guess those cars that emit a lot of coal. And how would you like that, it was something along those lines.
And I encourage people, the people that before we have a protest, I let people know we’re de-escalating our approach. There is to de-escalate. So one of the strongest ways to de-escalate, especially in times like this, is to just pull out your, back up, pull out your phone and start recording them. And they will either leave right away or change what they’re saying.
DINGMAN: You’ve had that experience personally?
MARJANOVIC: Oh yeah. They’re being confrontational thinking they can get away with it, and as soon as they’re held accountable by video recording them, they change course.
DINGMAN: So another question for you about tactics, you have talked about a strategy of de-escalation when things get confrontational. But as I’m sure you know, there have been some incidents of vandalism and assaults at Tesla takedown protests. Cybertrucks set on fire, Molotov cocktails being thrown.
Here in Glendale recently, we had an incident where somebody keyed a Tesla in a parking lot. What is your reaction to those incidents?
MARJANOVIC: Well, first of all, when I’m organizing people at the Temple Tesla Service Center. I send out an email and tell people, one, just don’t go onto their property, on the Tesla property because we’re there, we have a right to protest on government property, which is a sidewalk.
The fact that there are people who are doing these other acts, such as vandalizing the property, we’re not doing that. If anybody did attempt to do that, I’m that first person who would make sure that it stopped. And it just gets the other side to create nefarious labels about us just as peacefully protesting, they’re calling us domestic terrorists.
DINGMAN: Well, what do you make of and what are the conversations you’ve had with fellow protestors about? We saw Pam Bondi come out recently and say that the administration is going to aggressively prosecute people who vandalized Teslas.
Is that attention from the administration something that makes people nervous about participating in the protests?
MARJANOVIC: I have not seen that. More and more people come out every single week. So I think it’s actually led to more people turning out to our protests.
DINGMAN: So let’s say that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency do wrap up their work in the next month or so, or whatever it is. Will the protests continue?
MARJANOVIC: I think he has sustained my ire, because of the fact that as someone who got trained at the National Institutes of Health for my Ph.D. in immunology and microbiology, and I know for a fact when I was training there, I went there because it was the top biomedical institute in the world for research. People who are the top experts in the world.
And the reason why they were the top experts in the world was, was the fact that taxpayers like you and me funded that research to happen, and we directly benefitted from the research that happened. The basic research that happened there, and the fact that Elon Musk’s impact on drastically just firing people, what are essentially cuts to research at NIH, it leads to more deaths. It leads to more sick people.
And I think he sustained the ire of so many people that people will continue to figure out a way to impact his wealth.
