More than 10,000 protesters gathered in New York City on Presidents’ Day to speak out against the current Trump administration and the actions in particular of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
It was one of several protests that took place Monday in major cities across the country and came during the same long weekend that smaller protests sprouted up at Tesla dealerships across the country.
Protesters who spoke to TechCrunch from Washington Square Park, raised concerns about DOGE’s access to sensitive data of millions of Americans and the group’s dismantling of federal agencies. They said that they view Musk’s work with DOGE as a veiled attempt at a financial power grab, and expressed frustration that Musk, an unelected official, has gained unprecedented levels of power over the federal government.
“I think it’s extremely dangerous that [Musk] has access to our personal data,” Dmitri, 53, an architect who asked that his last name not be used, told TechCrunch. “He’s kind of a futurist fanboy who’s basically living in a sci-fi fantasy and trying to implement that, and has the resources to do mass amounts of damage. He’s tinkering with something that he doesn’t have the ability to actually understand.”
A 55-year-old retired teacher who identified himself only as Tom and who held a sign that read: “No one voted for Musk,” told TechCrunch, “As much as I dislike the fact that a significant number of Americans voted for Trump, it is absolutely the case that no one voted for Musk.”
Tom noted that he didn’t believe the average MAGA supporter voted for Musk and worried that DOGE’s cuts would hurt Americans on a state, local, and individual level.
“The consolidation of power under billionaires is a frightening thing,” he said.
Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office to create DOGE, giving Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX, Tesla, X, and other companies, the reins to root out government fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
Since then, DOGE has fired nearly 10,000 federal workers who handled everything from managing federal lands to caring for military veterans. Another 75,000 workers have accepted the Trump administration’s buyout proposal, which in late January offered federal workers eight months pay and benefits to leave their posts if they resigned in early February. DOGE has also cut 104 government contracts related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Trump also granted Musk’s DOGE team access to the Treasury department’s digital payments system, which controls trillions of dollars in payments to Americans, from Social Security benefits to tax refunds, despite questions about their security clearances, their cybersecurity practices, and the legality of Musk’s activities.
Supporters of Trump and Musk applaud their on-paper efforts to root out corruption, inefficiency, and red tape. Opponents object to the way DOGE is going about its stated goals, and warn that the team’s actions will lead to more corruption and national security risks.
A wave of legal challenges has followed that allege a lack of transparency and data privacy violations.
The protesters in New York started at Union Square and marched to Washington Square Park, congregating under the iconic memorial arch dedicated to George Washington, the nation’s first president. They chanted “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Elon Musk has got to go,” and held signs that touted a range of causes, but Musk and DOGE were a common theme throughout.
The New York Police Department estimated the number of attendees to be more than 10,000.
Victoria, who identified herself as a 37-year-old teacher, held a sign that read: “Stop the coup,” echoing comments made to The Guardian on Monday by Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, who told told the outlet, “In the U.S., we appeal rulings we disagree with – we don’t ignore court orders or threaten judges with impeachment just because we don’t like the decision. This is a coup, plain and simple.”
“This is not about us disagreeing with Republican policies,” said Victoria, bundled up against the cold winds whipping through the city, where though sunny, temperatures hovered around 32 degrees Fahrenheit. “It’s the fact that Trump has handed over the power of the purse to Elon Musk, who is unelected.”
As people played music and shouted chants, their homemade signs raised over their heads, a 39-year-old small business owner who identified himself as Corwin said of Musk, “he’s so conflicted and it’s so clear that his antiregulatory attitudes benefit him personally and financially.”
Musk has targeted several agencies for reduction or dismantling that regulates industries in which his companies operate. Earlier this month, Musk said he wants to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which would regulate X’s planned expansion to financial services, posting on his social network X “CFBP RIP,” punctuated with a tombstone emoji. He has stated an intention to go after the Federal Aviation Administration, an agency he’s clashed with before and one that regulates SpaceX. He has also called for ending a rule that requires automakers to report crashes when autonomous driving technology is engaged.
Musk’s actions at the federal level have affected Tesla’s brand image. During the automaker’s 2024 fourth-quarter earnings, analyst Thomas Monteiro of Investing.com noted that the hype around Tesla is trending downward due to, among other things, “severe brand devaluation.”
Stories are cropping up of people selling their Teslas out of a desire to no longer support Musk’s businesses. Some Cybertruck owners have reported instances of vandalism and harassment. The automaker’s sales, which were already beginning to suffer due to increased competition in the market and a stale lineup, have begun to plummet in Europe after Musk did what many say was a Nazi salute. Poland’s sports and tourism minister Slawomir Nitras lobbied for a Tesla boycott, and in Germany, several companies have cut ties with Tesla in reaction to Musk’s support both for Trump and the far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD).
