The people protesting the Trump administration on Saturday barely mentioned his name. Rather, the few dozen chanting and waving signs in Back Bay had positioned themselves outside of a Tesla dealership and focused their ire on Trump adviser and tech mogul Elon Musk.
The demonstration outside of Tesla, which is owned by Musk, was one of numerous nationwide Saturday. The protesters were speaking out against Musk’s position near the top of the Trump administration, from which he has sought to transform the scope and shape of the federal government, cutting staff heavily in certain departments.
“There just doesn’t seem to be much in the way, pushing back against him doing anything he wants,” said Pio Szamel, of Cambridge, who attended the protest.
Trump and Musk say they are drastically altering certain federal agencies in the name of fighting corruption, inefficiency, and government bloat, as well as stripping out initiatives that they say only enrich progressives. Musk has claimed the cuts total billions of dollars in savings for taxpayers.
But critics say these cuts have been irresponsible and overly aggressive, imperiling important government functions and going further than is allowed by law. Opponents of the moves have accused Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency of accessing personal data they should be barred from viewing. His moves have prompted a growing number of lawsuits aimed at preventing firings and limiting DOGE’s reach.
Some of the cuts aimed at federal health and science initiatives have prompted fears from scientists that there will be long-term repercussions for research of disease and energy initiatives. The local protests — which, ironically, were outside the electric vehicle company — involved scientists from a nearby conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, including people part of the leftist protest group Scientist Rebellion.
“This is rule by billionaire,” said Nathan Phillips, an ecology professor at Boston University. He was wearing a lab coat and holding a rectangle of cardboard that read “send Tesla the the wood chipper.” He added, “Not to take anything away from what Trump’s doing, but Elon Musk is a massive problem right now.”
The group walked in a circle outside the Tesla dealership in the Prudential Center. They held signs calling for Musk’s arrest and Trump’s impeachment, and urged people not to buy Musk’s products, including using the social-media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Boycott Tesla, boycott Twitter,” the chanters repeated.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Local news reports from other places around the country, generally Democrat-leaning cities, showed similar demonstrations at other dealerships.
Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter.