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The longest-running Portland protest of the Trump administration has marked its 10th week outside the South Waterfront auto lot selling the Cybertrucks made by Elon Musk, who is culling federal workers through the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency. The demonstrators gather each Monday outside the Old Spaghetti Factory, then tromp up a hill to wave signs at traffic passing the Tesla dealership.
The weekly pickets are thanks to Carolanne Fry, 38, a maintenance worker living in the Richmond neighborhood. Working with Outer East Portland Indivisible, she held her first protest Feb. 17—Presidents Day—and has continued every Monday since. She spoke to WW about what she hopes to achieve.
WW: How did the weekly protest at Tesla start?
Carolanne Fry: I was on Reddit and I saw one woman in Florida who said she went outside a Tesla dealership and she was the only person. She had a little sign that said “F Elon” or something. And I was like, man, we have a dealership right in the heart of Portland on a main street. We need to be out there protesting in front of it. So I threw up an invite on the website called Mobilize. We had a hundred people our first week, and that was now nine weeks ago.
Are there people who show up every single week?
Easily a hundred people show up every week whose names I know. We’re very lucky here in Portland—we’re such a blue city—but there’s a person who just moved to Portland came to one protest. She’s like, “Oh, I’m so glad I’m not the only one.”
And we get so many positive responses from the people driving by—so much horn honking, so many solidarity fists, peace signs, thumbs up. We also see a lot of like blue-collar workers, which I am thrilled with. I think that they’re tired of billionaires tampering with our politics and stealing their money.
Has anybody insulted you or given you a hard time?
Oh, definitely. On our last Monday, the last car that like drove by as I was walking off, it was some guy who stopped and was screaming at us about how we were deranged and never happy and crybabies. We get a couple of those. Luckily, we haven’t had anyone come in person to bother us, which is a big relief because nowadays things are just so creepy.
It feels like the vibes at 2025 protests so far are very different from the vibes at 2020 protests. Why do you think that is?
I’ve gone through the waves of just being so distraught at what is happening, and then feeling empowered to be fighting back, and then going back to being so overwhelmed. So I don’t know if the vibes are different. People were saying, “Where’s the resistance?” And then to see hundreds of protests across the country: Organizing is definitely a form of resistance. But I think we’re all just still in shock at the speed at which they’re trying to dismantle the democracy. It’s awe inspiring in the worst possible way.
Um, it’s hard not to notice that it’s been an older crowd in a lot of these protests. Is this the last revolution of the baby boomers?
A technical answer for my protests, at least they are during working hours. It’s rush hour on Monday. So a lot of nonboomers are working. So that’s why we kind of skew older.
But my other answer is, I think that they’re, they are really organizing. I’m sure a lot of boomers are in the situation where they’re looking at retirement and they are seeing their 401(k) plummeting and maybe their daughter’s losing reproductive health rights, what the hell can we do? So I’m pretty inspired by them. They have so much wisdom that they bring. This is not their first rodeo. I do wish I saw more young people, though, that’s for sure. I feel like I’m like one of the younger people, and I’m almost 40.
Do you worry at all about the vandalism of Tesla dealerships coopting your peaceful protests?
No. I mean, we live in a very violent country, so people having guns and using those guns to show their opinions, it does not surprise me remotely. But no, I didn’t think that it would reflect poorly on us. I think people know at this point that there’s always fringe people who feel that violence is their only choice left. We do not promote violence at all.
What are you hoping to achieve?
Ultimately, the goal would be to bankrupt Tesla and cause Elon Musk to lose, obviously not all of his wealth, but whatever wealth he has invested in Tesla. And it seems like that’s a realistic goal. His stock price is dropping. The mission is more about asking people to sell your Tesla, do not buy Tesla, dump your Tesla stock. We can’t let Elon come back from this. He has radically changed American society, and he was not elected to do so. What is happening is just absolute insanity right in front of our eyes.