Cops Detain Six at Anti-Musk Rally at Tesla Showroom
An umbrella group of anti-Elon Musk protesters descended on a Tesla showroom in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District on March 8. A half dozen protesters entered the showroom: Five were hit with summonses, one was arrested for disorderly conduct.
| 08 Mar 2025 | 06:26
The protest came with musical accompaniment as one rally-goer set up a snare drum to set a beat for the anti-Elon Musk chants. (
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B. Wurz, from the Lower East Side, said he is worried that the USA is heading toward fascism. (
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Sonni Mun said she dressed in a chicken outfit to remind people: “These are not normal times. People need to stand up for democracy.” (
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Police set up a barricade around the Tesla showroom on Washington Street in the Meatpacking District, but that did not prevent a half-dozen protestors from entering the showroom and getting arrested as the largely peaceful crowd was breaking up after a two-hour rally, (
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About 350 demonstrators turned out for an anti-Elon Musk rally outside a Tesla showroom in the Meatpacking District on March 8. (
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Elizabeth Payne (left) said she came to the anti-Musk rally because she did not want her daughter to one day ask her why she did not stand up for democracy. Her daughter, Avery Tsai, was there too and said, “I’m here to stand against fascism.” (
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A crowd that grew to about 350 people gathered outside the Tesla showroom in the Meatpacking District on March 8, protesting federal staffing cuts being made by Elon Musk, which the rally-goers say will endanger lives and make the world less safe.
With drums and whistles, the boisterous crowd chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Elon Musk has got to go!” Dozens of people from an earlier women’s march swelled the ranks of the anti-Musk protest near the end of the two-hour protest.
Organizers said that at least six people entered the Tesla showroom at 860 Washington St. as the rally was breaking up, shortly before 2 p.m., in an act of civil disobedience. “They entered the showroom and knew they’d be arrested,” said Sophie Shepherd, a spokesperson for the coalition of groups behind the rally.
In reality, the NYPD said only one of the half-dozen who stormed the showroom was actually arrested–and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest; the other five were issued summonses.
Most of the crowd was spirited but peaceful. “I think we’re heading toward Nazi Germany,” said a protester who stood calmly in the crowd and identified himself as B. Wurtz from the Lower East Side. “We could get there. It’s very scary.” He held a handmade sign that read “NO TO FASCISM.”
Erin McConnell, one of the organizers, read a long list of grievances that she said were tied to the disbandment of the United States Agency for International Development that President Donald Trump shut down.
”People will die,” she said, predicting that in underdeveloped countries at least 10,000 children and 10,000 pregnant women will die now that the AIDS medications that were being dispensed by USAID have been abruptly halted.
”They lost access to HIV vaccines in the quest to lower taxes for the ultra-wealthy,” said McConnell, leading a chant from the crowd.
The DOGE team that Musk is heading “took a wrecking ball and squashed programs that tens of millions of people rely on merely to exist,” she said. DOGE is the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.
”Divesting USAID will make the world and America less safe,” she said.
Sonni Mun, dressed in a silver mini skirt and a yellow chicken outfit, held a sign that read, “Don’t be a Chicken in a COUP!” “People need to stand up for democracy,” she said. She said she dressed as a chicken to draw attention to: “This is not a normal time in America.”
Elizabeth Payne said, “We’re living under a fascist coup . . . Democracy is in peril. History is going to ask why didn’t anyone do anything. I don’t want my daughter asking me, ‘Why didn’t you stand up?’ ”
In fact, her daughter, Avery Tsai, accompanied her to the rally. “I’m here to stand against fascism and for democracy,” she said.
Shepherd said she was a spokesperson for a number of groups that included Planet over Profit, Climate Defenders, NY Communities for Change, and Extinction Rebellion NYC. “We’re hoping to keep it going with more demonstrations in the future,” she said.
”People will die,” Erin McConnell, one of the organizers of the anti-Elon Musk protest outside a Tesla showroom in the Meatpacking District
“I think we are heading toward Nazi Germany. We could get there. It’s very scary.” Lower East Side resident B. Wurtz