The Georgetown Tesla Tesla Takedown dancing party has met for 43 weeks outside automaker Elon Musk’s showroom on M Street. Photo: J. Zangas/ DCMediaGroup
Georgetown, Washington DC—A Saturday morning drive along M Street in Georgetown would find one passing the Tesla Takedown dancing crew. For the 43rd consecutive week, they’ve been trolling Elon Musk’s Tesla electric vehicle company by wearing costumes and dancing. The DJ spins well-known disco hits from the bygone disco era while dozens spin and shake their hips outside the Tesla showroom. Their dance is a joyous resistance to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the trigger of a wave of destruction within government agencies and firings of thousands of federal workers.
Over the past 10 months they’ve created space where residents, shoppers, and tourists heed their call to resistance by joining their dance troupe. The Georgetown community has grown used their weekly presence outside the Tesla showroom every Saturday from 11-1.
On February 15, early this year, the Georgetown Tesla Takedown dancers began their continuous run when three locals decided they had to do something about the takedown of government agencies and join the social media campaign to protest Elon Musk’s DOGE government takeover. And they thought in order to make it welcoming they had to make it fun. And ever since then they’ve created a space where anyone can easily join in, not feel intimidated by a sense of conflict that newcomers typically feel when going to their first protest, and give them a reason to look forward to returning.
The first few months DC Metropolitan Police were always parked nearby on M Street or across the street keeping an eye on them. Why police? Well, one can never know what to expect from joyful citizens dressed in retro disco disguises, or wearing taco costumes, having fun dancing outside a Tesla showroom. They may do the unthinkable. In fact they did a few times. They served free bean tacos (Trump Always Chickens Out) with hot-sauce and plenty of cold beverages one Saturday. Police didn’t accept an invitation to dance or enjoy any of the hot bean tacos. Eventually DC police realized there was no threat and stopped showing up on Saturdays altogether. There just wasn’t that much danger from those fighting fascism by dancing outside the Tesla Takedown. Besides there was a backlog of real cases needing cracking elsewhere. And that’s why Trump said he was calling out the National Guard, to fight a “crime wave.”
On this Saturday just across the street five National Guard troops stood at the corner of 32rd and M Street, closely watching the dancers. One of the guardsmen couldn’t help it and probably didn’t even realize he was doing it, but he moved his feet to the rhythm of the soundtrack—the song being spun by DJ Mike Kepka, happened to be Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Blame It On The Boogie.”
Kepka, a successful sound technician and self-proclaimed ‘Master of The Universe,’ has been there every week loyally spinning songs to sink fascism. Based on the stimulating effect his mixing skills had on the dancers and the Guardsman, there was no doubt who the mix master was. He has been mixing music every week since the beginning of the Georgetown Tesla Takedown. He said one of the organizers provided him the playlist and he brought his professional equipment out for the cause.
About 50 dancers spent the next 2-hours burning off the carbohydrates from many days of Thanksgiving excesses. There were also bottles of water and small pouches of electrolytes for them. And although it was a chilly day, on the sunny side of M Street, it did get hot. Some passersby joined in, but most passed by with nods of approval or taking video of the dancing. The crowded cupcake shop provided some of the dancers free red velvet sweet cupcakes with hearts reading’No Regrets’ for ginning up all the business from the attention the dancers generated.
The dancers carry many different types of signs and messages as they dance. They’ve also lined the front showroom with signs so anyone can grab one and join in. The signs reflect many different issues the crisis creators have stirred up from within the regime, whether it’s the ICE round up of immigrants, cratering the economy with tariffs, rifting federal workers, defending pedophiles, trading pardons for cryptocurrency, tearing down the White House, taking health plans from grandmothers, and others.
Tesla Takedown Georgetown has succeeded in creating a community space for resistance, far beyond its original expectations, according to one of its main organizers, Melissa Knutson. “This started out with three people who just happened to pass each other on the street and we said, ‘let’s do a dance party’ and it has grown and we have people that show up every week.”
Knutson also believes the success of the Georgetown Tesla Takedown is rooted in its joyful nature. Of the regime, she said, “We’ve got them on their back foot and we have the wind at our backs. Since November we’ve really made a big shift. There’s so much joy out here and so much resilience.”
She holds dear the idea that self-described fascist, Donald Trump, is being brought to light and her sign, ‘Fabulously Fighting Fascism,’ is a blueprint for what the Georgetown Tesla Takedown dancers have accomplished. “There’s so many Americans joining in with us, standing up, love what we’re doing, and don’t like what the regime is doing. And that’s why we’re here. We are giving people that joy to remind them that we are Americans and can withstand anything.”
One person who joined stood out. She was a white-haired octogenarian who picked up a sign from the sidewalk, held an American flag, and shuffled her feet. She stayed and danced until the last song.