Dueling demonstration groups converge on Tesla dealership in South Salt Lake

SOUTH SALT LAKE — Two different groups of demonstrators took to the sidewalk Saturday outside a Tesla dealership on State Street in South Salt Lake.

Under a gray and windy sky, one group waived signs to the stream of passing cars, protesting Elon Musk's involvement in the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, under President Donald Trump's second administration.

The demonstration was part of a global "Tesla Takedown" taking place Saturday at many company locations. The goal was for shareholders to boycott Tesla by selling off stock in the company and its vehicles.

Another mass of demonstrators, apparently centered on the group Utah Patriots, said they showed up to protect Tesla inventory from vandalism and keep the peace more generally.

The Utah Patriots is a peaceful group, according to members who were at the dealership Saturday. They can be seen driving in convoys around the state Capitol or on the interstate, waving flags. One woman said she teared up during her first convoy, a 2022 demonstration against COVID-19 restrictions spurred by the Canadian trucker convoy protests with the same goals.

"I just love my country so much," she said, adding that she enjoyed the opportunity to have fun showing it.

Often, both groups cheered when cars and trucks honked and drove by. It was difficult for all to tell which group was being encouraged — unless passengers rolled down a window to shout their beliefs, which also happened often.

The Tesla Takedown was organized explicitly as a peaceful protest, with all notices saying demonstrators "oppose violence, vandalism and destruction of property."

Still, in recent months, the electric vehicle company and its products have been the target of political opposition.

On March 21, the FBI released an alert saying, "Since January 2025, incidents targeting Tesla (electric vehicles) have occurred in at least nine states. These incidents have involved arson, gunfire and vandalism, including graffiti expressing grievances against those the perpetrators perceive to be racists, fascists or political opponents. These criminal actions appear to have been conducted by lone offenders, and all known incidents occurred at night."

A number of the counter-protesters told KSL.com they were standing up against "domestic terrorism" after the vandalism incidents.

"We're out here protecting the Teslas from deranged people, and, as you can see, not a single Tesla has been burned or destroyed," said Christian Drain, an independent party there to support Musk.

On both sides, people were waving flags from the beds of pickup trucks, mingling with those from the other viewpoint, debating and sometimes yelling. Some on the pro-Musk side were armed, with large knives in their tactical vests and pistols on their hips.

"I try to keep it peaceful. I don't like conflicts," Drain said. "That's not how we should do things. We should always be peaceful with each other."

Drain and others KSL.com spoke to repeated the claim that the anti-Musk protesters were driven to the dealership in buses from out of state, and paid for their time by billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros. No supporting evidence for that claim was found.

KSL.com spoke to a number of protesters who came by bus, but it was on Utah Transit Authority buses from their homes nearby. Most of the organization efforts were done by Salt Lake Indivisible, a local group under the umbrella of the national organization Indivisible, though on both sides there were many not affiliated with any organization.

One federal cybersecurity contractor for the Internal Revenue Service said he found out about the event on social media and wanted to protest because of the funding cuts that have hit his company and the return-to-work orders that have made life difficult for his colleagues.

"I've watched a lot of our funding get damaged, which damages our mission. We're having trouble getting our procurements to get the equipment we need to continue our work," the IT contractor said, not wanting to be named for fear of professional repercussions. "I think the most egregious example I can think of most recently is the secure disposal of electronic equipment."

When old equipment is cycled out — like a switch, router or firewall — that material must be disposed of securely because it may still contain sensitive information, he said. As part of a DOGE initiative, credit card spending limits for many federal agencies were set at $1. "We're not able to make those purchases anymore, so we have pallets of equipment just wrapped up in our server room currently, that we can't securely dispose of," he said.

The IT contractor said he and his colleagues fear another reduction in the workforce. "As far as I can tell with my contract, our funding will be ending soon, and it is due to (the company) being a woman-owned workplace that prided itself on diversity," he said.

"We haven't been given any answers, exactly, as to why our contract is not being funded," he said, "other than suddenly the website needed to be stripped of all mention of it being a woman-owned company."

None of the company's functions fell within the recent diversity, equity or inclusion crackdown. "We work on our network equipment and keep it secure," he said. "We have nothing to do with any policies regarding that."

Other protests took place Saturday in Riverdale in Weber County and Pleasant Grove in Utah County.

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