Even as thousands turned out this weekend nationwide to demonstrate against Elon Musk and his companies and activities, the man drawing the ire of the crowds is accusing the protests of being planned, bought and paid for.
The number of protesters in Texas was light on Saturday compared to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, with some locations in Dallas reporting thousands of protesters, contrasted to some in Houston where the turnout was measured by "a handful."
But on his social media platform X on Sunday morning, Musk asked, "Who is funding and organizing all these paid protests?"
Organizers led participants in chants, holding up signs and included some wearing anti-Elon t-shirts, while calling the protests "a movement" and a "grassroots effort" that's peaceful and non-violent.
Yet Tesla vehicles were vandalized and set afire, Tesla owners harassed, and Musk is being called "Nazi" and "fascist."
Often it's noticed that protesters have professional-looking pre-printed signs and are often wearing clean, appropriate clothing for the demonstrations, leading an increasing number of people to question whether the protests -- referred to by organizers as "grassroots" gatherings, meaning they happen solely because people are angry enough to spontaneously gather in opposition to something -- are not actually "grassroots" at all, but are "Astro Turf," the term meaning "fake grass," coined decades ago after the artificial grass first used for the Houston Astros in the Astrodome.
One of the characteristics of organized, well-planned protests is seeing local Democratic Party activists attending the demonstrations, as was noted a few days ago by Fairfax Times reporter Asra Nomani, who wrote in a post on X, "I went to the Tysons, VA, Tesla Takedown protest...last Saturday, locals calling on America to "deport Elon Musk" and saw familiar faces from local Democratic Party activism. I documented identical messaging to protests nationwide and then built a...database of 304 protests that reveals that indeed the protests are more Astro Turf than 'grassroots.'"
Nomani says she now has a database that is keeping track of the similarities between protests, implying they are centrally planned, and she's seeking to gather evidence that at least some and perhaps most of those who attend such demonstrations are paid participants.
She's even gotten what she calls a list of Democrat Party-affiliated organizations that are behind the current wave of public demonstrations.
If anti-Musk protests are funded and protesters paid, it doesn't appear to be much of a stretch to find out who's in charge of the payrolls, Nomani said.