By Danielle Echeverria,Data Reporter Feb 17, 2025 (SFChronicle.com)
Ronan, 11, waves an upside-down American flag, a symbol of distress, outside the Tesla dealership on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco during a Presidents Day protest against President Donald Trump and businessman Elon Musk on Monday. Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle
Hundreds of people marched from San Francisco City Hall to the Tesla dealership on Van Ness Avenue on Monday while denouncing the efforts of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk to shrink the federal government.
Attendees expressed deep concern about Trump’s flurry of actions in the last few weeks aimed at slashing the federal workforce, as well as the attempts by Musk’s extra-governmental organization DOGE to access government and taxpayer data. Carrying homemade signs with slogans like “Democracy dies in silence,” “Resist fascism,” “No one elected Elon” and “The U.S. doesn’t have a king,” protesters condemned the Trump administration’s actions as an attack on democracy.
Billed as a “No Kings on Presidents Day” march, the protest was one of several across the country on Monday, including in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Sacramento.
Patty Moddelmog, who organized Monday’s protest in San Francisco, said that she was “feeling out of control” with the sweeping changes brought by Trump and Musk, and she felt that Presidents Day was a poignant time to take action. Not seeing any demonstrations planned in San Francisco, she decided to do it herself, posting fliers around the city and on social media. From there, she said, “people ran with it.”
“In San Francisco, we will show (Trump and Musk) that we are not OK with this,” she said, adding that she didn’t want to see “unelected billionaires” making changes to government programs like Social Security and Medicaid. “Their only interest is gaining more money and more power. … It’s disgusting.”
John Toya, carrying a cardboard sign that read “Stop Musk-o-lini,” expressed a similar concern, saying that the Trump administration’s actions seemed designed to benefit only the very, very wealthy, and that frustration prompted Toya to join Monday’s protest.
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“It’s ridiculous,” Toya said. Trump “is giving so much control to somebody who is not elected and not looking for the interest of how the government actually works.”
His friend Penelope Whitney agreed, adding that she was troubled that Musk and Trump were appearing to bypass the democratic mechanisms meant to prevent one person from having so much control.
“Everything being done is wrecking our democracy,” she said.
Federal employees who had either recently been let go or watched coworkers laid off as part of Trump and Musk’s cuts were among the protesters. Workers with the National Park Service, who declined to give their names out of fear for their jobs, said that they were dismayed by the “unceremonious” way in which people were laid off in the last week, including everyone from biologists to maintenance workers.
They said they were concerned about the ripple effects of such people being fired, from something as simple as less cleanup service in parks to larger, more long-term issues like protecting endangered species that live in those parks.
Standing on Van Ness in front of the Tesla dealership, protesters chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, Elon Musk has got to go” and “This is what democracy looks like” before breaking into the classic protest song “This Land Is Your Land.”
Seeing the hundreds of people who turned out on Monday, Moddelmog, the organizer, decided to make the protest a weekly event — announcing over a bullhorn that there would be demonstrations in front of the Tesla dealership every Saturday at noon “until Tesla stock is in the dumps.” Several people stopped her to let her know they’d be there again next week.
Moddelmog said that she hoped others would take inspiration and organize their own demonstrations as well, saying it was critical to keep taking action.
“It’s not that hard to organize,” she said. “Let’s get out there. … It’s time Elon faces some consequences for meddling in every country’s politics.”
Reach Danielle Echeverria: Danielle.Echeverria@sfchronicle.com; X: @DanielleEchev
Feb 17, 2025
DATA REPORTER
Danielle Echeverria is a data reporter for the Chronicle. She recently completed her Master’s degree in journalism at Stanford University, where she won the Nicholas Roosevelt Environmental Journalism Award for her reporting and covered agriculture, climate change and worker safety. She previously interned The Chronicle on the Business desk, as well as at Big Local News, focusing on data journalism. She is originally from Bakersfield, California.
