How the “Tesla Takeover” protests this weekend against Elon Musk gathered on Bluski

So “Wood Chipper”, “ The effort of major efforts to hit the most rich man in the world where it hurts is to raise steam.

The courts are busy challenging the actions of the Ministry of Musk, but the judiciary is slow – and citizens become ants.

Some of the United States, which is spreading to the Musk government, have sold their Teslas or went straight to vandalism.

But hundreds of others are now planning to protest Tesla’s dealers across the country on February 15th – a movement that quickly spun over last week by misinformation researcher Joan Donovan and accelerated by the documentary director and franchise star and Ted Alex Winter of Bluezki.

“As citizens, we have different leverage points,” Donovan said in an interview with TechCrunch. “One talks with our representatives, but the other publicly attracts attention to the redeeming of the Federal Government’s data, and in particular the way Musk works without transparency and seems to be impunity.”

What started in Bluezky has spread to planned protests outside Tesla’s showrooms throughout the country in cities such as Austin, Portland, Seattle, Kansas City and Meat, Arizona.

Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. TechCrunch will be updated if the Musk or the car manufacturer responds.

The motivation for Donovan – who is also an assistant in journalism at Boston University, but said he was acting as a US citizen – he came when he saw the first few small protests outside Tesla’s stores last week.

“I was inspired by a little protest in Maine, where people had brought some signs to a Tesla loading station and how it led to a conversation and allowed people to meet and discuss what was happening,” Donovan said.

So, earlier this week, Donovan began to publish.

“If Musk thinks it can accelerate the passage through DC by downloading personal data, we can certainly hit some pots and pans on the Infront (SIC) sidewalks of Tesla dealers,” she she wrote On February 8, while linked to Tesla’s own list of his stores in the US, she added hashjug, “#teslatakeover”.

Winter, who works with Donovan to organize shows on his 2022. documentary The YouTube effect at universities told TechCrunch that he saw the publications and reached for it to help organize the efforts.

“Sell your Teslas, discard your stocks, join the Picket lines,” winter published For Bluski on February 10, “The injury of Tesla stops Musk, and the stopping of Musk will help save lives and our democracy.”

Following this post, Winter and Donovan encouraged people to create their own local tesla absorption events. As of Friday afternoon, people have created 42 protest events in the United States, including California, Florida, Texas and New York.

Winter told TechCrunch in an interview with which he partnered with The interruption projectA group that offers training for people who are interested in mass activism. He said hundreds of people have had RSVP to the various events so far, and this is more every day. Winter also said he had even heard from people planning them internationally.

The protests are more than the formation of optics and the construction of a community, said Winter. Musk’s huge wealth is largely linked to its property of about 20% of Tesla’s shares. This makes it somewhat vulnerable to major changes in the company’s stock price – double, because he borrowed an incredible amount of money against these shares.

While the exact amount of dollar is unknown, the regulatory submission of April 2024. Musk used nearly 60% of all Tesla shares it possesses at the time As a collateral for loansS Theoretically, if the price of Tesla’s shares had to sink low enough, Musk’s creditors may want to pay what is still due, or at least make it renegotiate its terms.

“The long goal is to depreciate, to create a vote of no confidence in the future of the company and to encourage widespread sale of shares, which would legally harm it,” he said. “But I also see enormous value only in public activist education and an aspect of literacy of this.”

The background of winter makes it well prepared for this education. He made documentaries about Panama Papers (a project that puts out a financial crime and corruption around the world) and the potential damage to the algorithmic YouTube issue. He also participates in “Release our emissions“An initiative that is an effort to build an open Bluesky’s At Protocol Social Media System.

With this in mind, it is no surprise that he said he was concerned about Musk’s influence on technology for years.

Donovan said he believed that Musk “really uses the fact that many Americans do not know how the government actually works” while spreading this misinformation. She worries that this will lead to violence – especially when Musk and his supporters separate state workers, judges and members of their families.

This is another reason why Donovan said he wanted people to go out and protest.

“I hope that people are gathering, acting locally, but they think globally of these protests and find other more senior ways to resist,” Donovan said. “I think one of the things that Musk has neglected is that power is not extracted from the federal government, power comes from states and there are many things that different government agencies can do to take advantage of the federal government power to force of accountability. “