Categoria: Civil rights

People are gathering in cities all over the United States and globally to protest an “illegal, billionaire power grab” by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They’re being put on by over 150 different organizations, including civil rights groups, labor unions, and LGBTQ+ advocates, and span more than 1,300 locations.

Last weekend, “Tesla Takedown” protests targeted Tesla showrooms around the country to show disapproval for Musk, its CEO, who has spearheaded an effort to carry out mass federal workforce layoffs and hollow out government agencies. As Tesla’s sales have plummeted this quarter, Musk has threatened to “go after” the company’s critics, while the FBI has created a task force to investigate individual acts of vandalism and other actions aimed at the company.

The scope of these protests is much broader, targeting both Trump and Musk, who the Hands Off website accuses (accurately) of “shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid.” The Verge’s Mia Sato is in Manhattan’s Bryant Park in New York City, where she took the above video. She told me it wasn’t clear how many people are there, but that it’s “wall to wall everywhere” despite the fact that it’s “raining here and really nasty.”

My colleague Lauren Feiner, who attended the protest in Washington, DC, said the protest there “is very big, thousands here around the Washington monument.” She described it as “very peaceful and orderly,” with attendees listening quietly to the speakers, occasionally chanting in response. (Organizer estimates later suggested there were more than 100,000 people each at both the NYC and DC rallies.)

Jessica Toman, who went to the protest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, texted the above image to me. A person posting images of the same protest on Bluesky guessed that protesters numbered in the thousands.

It looks like a similar story in Boston, where “thousands” are seen in this video from today:

Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul posted aerial footage of a massive crowd gathered at the State Capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota:

Demonstrators gathered in massive numbers in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois, too, where a CBS Chicago livestream showed what looked like many thousands of people filling an entire street from one side to the other for many blocks. (Over 30,000 people marched in Chicago on Saturday, according to organizer estimates reported by WBEZ Chicago after we published this story). Protests are also taking place overseas, in cities like Berlin, Germany and London, England.

It’s not just major cities. Hundreds appear to have shown up to protest in cities like St. Augustine, Florida, which the US Census Bureau estimates has less than 16,000 people, and Riverhead, New York, where only about 36,000 people live. Cars honked in apparent support of a protest in Manhattan, Kansas (under 54,000 residents), according to the Bluesky user who posted this video:

A similar scene plays out in this video, apparently taken in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a town of fewer than 4,000 people, today:

Here’s a gallery with some more images taken by Sato, Toman, and The Verge’s Chris Welch:

Update April 6th: Changed the number of protests that were planned from 1,200 to 1,300 to more accurately reflect information from the Hands Off! protest website. Also updated with attendance estimates for specific rallies where relevant.

Hundreds of thousands of people signed up to attend over 1,300 “Hands Off!” protests against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk yesterday. Today, estimates from groups involved in planning the protests suggest the protesters in the US and abroad may have actually numbered in the millions.

Activist group MoveOn is “estimating millions of attendees” went to the 1,300-plus scheduled events, with more than 100,000 turning out for the Washington, DC protest, Britt Jacovich, the group’s communications director, told The Verge via email. A press release published on the official Hands Off! website yesterday tells the same story:

Millions of people flooded the streets today at over 1,300 “Hands Off!” peaceful protests across all 50 states, U.S. territories, and a dozen locations globally, demanding an end to the authoritarian overreach by Trump and Musk.

The protests were laser-focused on Musk and Trump, but the concerns that drove yesterday’s demonstrations are wide-ranging, covering everything from Trump’s trade war and DOGE’s relentless federal agency cuts and layoffs, to LGBTQ+ and other civil rights issues, to the war in Ukraine. More than 150 groups participated in their organization, including those mentioned in this story, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters, and labor unions like the AFL-CIO and those representing federal workers, such as the National Treasury Employees Union.

Indivisible, another of the more than 150 organizations involved in planning the protests, gives a similar estimate to MoveOn’s in a statement reported by Common Dreams, in which it says that “at virtually every single event the crowds eclipsed our estimates.” From Common Dreams:

“This is the largest day of protest since Trump retook office,” the group added. “And in many small towns and cities, activists are reporting the biggest protests their communities have ever seen as everyday people send a clear, unmistakable message to Trump and Musk: Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy.”

Other reported estimates from yesterday are smaller. The Guardian, The Hill, and Al Jazeera each put the number in the hundreds of thousands. Even so, millions doesn’t seem implausible. According to Axios, over 45,000 people gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the outlet reports more than 100,000 people demonstrated both in Washington, DC and New York City. Organizers say more than 30,000 showed up in Chicago, writes WBEZ Chicago.

One of the most specific numbers reported so far comes from the social media accounts of 50501, one of the most prominent protest movements that have sprung up in the wake of Musk’s actions as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The group posted late yesterday that “over 3 million people across the country stood up to say HANDS OFF our democracy.”

People are gathering in cities all over the United States and globally to protest an “illegal, billionaire power grab” by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They’re being put on by over 150 different organizations, including civil rights groups, labor unions, and LGBTQ+ advocates, and span more than 1,200 locations.

Last weekend, “Tesla Takedown” protests targeted Tesla showrooms around the country to show disapproval for Musk, its CEO, who has spearheaded an effort to carry out mass federal workforce layoffs and hollow out government agencies. As Tesla’s sales have plummeted this quarter, Musk has threatened to “go after” the company’s critics, while the FBI has created a task force to investigate individual acts of vandalism and other actions aimed at the company.

The scope of these protests is much broader, targeting both Trump and Musk, who the Hands Off website accuses (accurately) of “shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid.” The Verge’s Mia Sato is in Manhattan’s Bryant Park in New York City, where she took the above video. She told me it wasn’t clear how many people are there, but that it’s “wall to wall everywhere” despite the fact that it’s “raining here and really nasty.”

My colleague Lauren Feiner, who attended the protest in Washington, DC, said the protest there “is very big, thousands here around the Washington monument.” She described it as “very peaceful and orderly,” with attendees listening quietly to the speakers, occasionally chanting in response.

Jessica Toman, who went to the protest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, texted the above image to me. A person posting images of the same protest on Bluesky guessed that protesters numbered in the thousands.

It looks like a similar story in Boston, where “thousands” are seen in this video from today:

Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul posted aerial footage of a massive crowd gathered at the State Capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota:

Demonstrators gathered in massive numbers in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois, too, where a CBS Chicago livestream showed what looked like many thousands of people streaming from one side of the street to another for many blocks while this story was being written. Protests are also taking place overseas, in cities like Berlin, Germany and London, England.

It’s not just major cities. Hundreds appear to have shown up to protest in cities like St. Augustine, Florida, which the US Census Bureau estimates has less than 16,000 people, and Riverhead, New York, where only about 36,000 people live. Cars honked in apparent support of a protest in Manhattan, Kansas (under 54,000 residents), according to the Bluesky user who posted this video:

A similar scene plays out in this video, apparently taken in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a town of fewer than 4,000 people, today:

Here’s a gallery with some more images taken by Sato, Toman, and The Verge’s Chris Welch: