Arlington, VA—On Saturday, the Tesla Takedown crew of Arlington met for their 41st Saturday in a row outside the Tesla showroom on South Glebe Road. Yes, they’ve been meeting since February 14, and they’ve managed an improbable continuous marathon of weekly protests outside CEO Elon Musk’s Tesla showroom ever since he was appointed the principal of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to dismantle government agencies.
The afternoon sun was low but the mid-November air was mild when they showed up Saturday, though some still wore jackets. The artists among the core group had collaborated the week before to create a thread of signs drawing out the grossly wasteful payment to Musk of a $1 T pay package if he met certain corporate benchmarks over the next 10 years. That’s more than the nominal gross domestic product of Switzerland and the 120 countries ranked after it.
The Tesla Takedown crew designed a giant hand made banner accompanied by a tapestry of plain black and white signs for display outside the Tesla showroom asking the question: ‘Elon, what will you do with your trillion dollar bonus?’ Several held up the big banner, while underneath it, others held signs answering the question for Musk as to what good a trillion dollars could be spent on. Pay off 25 million student loans, pay childcare costs in the US for 15 years, open 1,000 rural clinics, and fund cancer research for 138 years, were a few of the signs.
Above the banner and signs the team a displayed a giant life-sized puppet paper-mâché bald eagle with movable 6-foot wings and a giant bag of money hanging from its talons. The eagle and bag of money signified the giant transfer of wealth from U.S. taxpayers via the Treasury to Musk, according to its visual artist designer, Marcos Smyth. He designed the wings to move up and down to give the puppet a lifelike visualization of flight. He accomplished this by creating a pivot connecting the wings internally with rubber tire tubing. With up and down movement of the pole it was mounted on, the eagle wings could flap.
Smyth previously designed a paper-mâché caricature of Trump with skinny arms and small hands for the DC No Kings rally on October 19. The caricature was featured in photographs on major news publications around the world.
Billionaire Wealth Center Of Dying Economy
Many Americans are pressured by economic inequality in part because the policies under Trump tilt more and more towards the benefit of the extremely-wealthy class. The outrageous vote on November 7 by Tesla shareholders to pay Musk a $1 trillion pay package is a symptom of runaway inverted capitalism and its failure to allocate resources equitably.
Inverted capitalism is a growing reality. It happens as the result of extreme wealth concentration acceleration. As a few break away with extreme wealth, they become less able to reinvest their increasing profits in ways beneficial to society. The wealthy begin to buy and control ever more of the commodities and corporations and form super monopolies. This, in turn, accelerates the rate of resource control and concentration in their favor. As a result, the inverted capitalism model deprives more and more Americans of an opportunity to reach a decent standard of living. Housing, healthcare, and food costs are inflating rapidly while wages have effectively remained stagnant for decades. This scenario became more flagrant as taxes and regulatory guardrails of the wealthy were removed from the economic system under Trump.
For the first time ever, billionaire Musk, the world’s richest man, openly bought his way with $280 million in contributions to Trump’s campaign, and in consideration got control of the policy implementation and operation of the US government. The current regime was steaming full speed ahead without ethical guardrails and was also ok with corrupt arrangements between billionaires and the running into the ground of government, something never before seen in the U.S.
Musk has already demonstrated his inability to follow through on many of his previous commitments; several of which have failed outright. Tesla sales globally have fallen as his reputation tanked following his DOGE failures to deliver $2 trillion in savings to the U.S. treasury as he promised. Incidentally, DOGE has actually cost the US government over $21 billion in lost revenue due to paying federal workers not to work before they were terminated. DOGE has shut down many agencies or created dysfunctional workplaces in the public sector where it has not closed agencies, and those costs cannot yet be calculated until there is a return to service standards and the new costs are calculated.
Musk has not fully completed any project he’s ever undertaken before moving to the next. Several of these include: an imaginary levitating transporter system under Los Angeles known as Hyperloop that still has not gotten off the ground; a rocket system that has blown up repeatedly; a failed self-driving Tesla car that has resulted in injuries and deaths; a Tesla Model 2 years past its promised release date; and many others which include major brands. His purchase of Twitter and rebranding to “X” in 2021 has seen both revenue and usage drop significantly.
Tesla Takedown Organizers Demonstrate Unstoppable Commitment
After 41 weeks, the Tesla Takedown crew has become more innovative at messaging the inequality of an economy driven by greed for power, money, and dominance. And the national Tesla protest community is beginning to take notice of their efforts. Last month, the Arlington Tesla Takedown crew won a national contest for best video created at the Tesla Takedowns during the first 8 months of the Tesla Takedown rebranding campaign. There have been hundreds of Tesla protests nationwide since February, and with all the footage being created and floating around on social media, that’s something big. The video that won best clip at a Tesla protest was another simple but artistic collaboration by the team. It depicts a series of signs describing the indications of fascism as a republic falls under authoritarian control by a ruthless regime with a charismatic leader.
There was another collective collaboration for Halloween and others for the No Kings protests. Other activities preceded those messages. Many members are involved with other groups in the region and, like pollinators, they spread their knowledge and expertise between groups. They’ve organized safety and deescalation roles and parlayed their successful actions into an ecosystem of resistance. Each member carries their own set of skills and gives them generously to the successful completion of an activity.
And while this is happening, there’s that weekly 2-hour period in front of the Tesla showroom when they can discuss current events and find a moment of peace with others who understand the challenges and are doing something about it. Many have confided that this is a mental health reset because there have been some dark weeks in the last few months.
But between the new art projects and organizing, the newfound friendships and relationships, the people showing up at Tesla Takedowns are creating invisible alliances and networks they would otherwise not have had the need or opportunity to do. They are sharing skills and ideas in an ecosystem of social justice seekers. They are beginning to envision the new society of justice, peace, and equality they want once the toxic regime now in control falls away by its own demise or is replaced by an external force no one has anticipated. One thing is for certain, and that is opposition to the regime presently in power is increasing while the regime is itself beginning to splinter from within.
The regime has demonstrated it has no intention of carrying out the work ensuring the wellbeing of its citizens who pay taxes for the services guaranteeing their wellbeing: SNAP, an affordable healthcare plan, affordable housing, and reduced inflation are all promises made by Trump but not kept.
While the Trump policies shred the fabric of the American democratic experiment, the Trump regime and its billionaire class are missing an important aspect about resistors like the grassroots Tesla Takedown crews. By showing up week after week, they have created threads between themselves and other groups in a cross section of society that people like Trump and his cabinet are unable to see. And these grassroots groups are spreading throughout the country as more people organize against the rising wealth inequality created by the self-centered priorities and the ruthlessness of the regime.
It’s this invisible fabric which Trump cannot cut because he and his enablers cannot see it. Trump is focused on acquiring more power and wealth and defending what he has gained. He and his cabinet are hopelessly disconnected from the people and unable to understand their daily struggles and are therefore incapable of seeing the connections between people or understanding how and why they exist. They are squabbling over whether or not to impose tariffs or whether or not to release documents shining light on those involved in the Epstein human trafficking ring; whether or not to go to war with Venezuela,, and who to blame for their blunders.
Art exhibits on the mall offend Trump so he has them removed. Chalk on sidewalks scares Stephen Miller’s family, so they run from their neighborhood to the protection of life on a military base. Protests against the ruthlessness of police attacks against immigrants and migrants result in communities organized and invisibly interconnected against the ICE attacks and attackers. It is this invisible fabric connecting the people that will eventually surround Trump and his enablers, reduce their power, and isolate their influence for the good of the country.
