DOGE backlash has arrived at Elon Musk’s Seattle-area SpaceX outpost
Anti-Elon Musk protests have led consumers to boycott Tesla, unsettling the company and its share price. Could public sentiment have a similar effect on Musk’s privately owned space ventures?
A group of protesters from Seattle’s Eastside believe it can.
That group – organized through the national grassroots movement Indivisible – has demonstrated outside the Redmond offices of Musk’s SpaceX rocket company and Starlink satellite internet firm every Wednesday for the last five weeks. The most recent demonstration drew roughly 350 people, more than double the first week’s attendance, according to organizers.
Similar to the crowds that have gathered outside Tesla dealerships around the country, the group in Redmond hopes to send a message that they don’t want the billionaire involved in the federal government and don’t support recent moves from the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency Service.
Organizer Michaele Blakely, 71, said she helped come up with the idea to protest outside Musk’s offices around the same time everyone else did. Five weeks ago, there was an “explosion” of action at Tesla dealerships and other office parks around the country, she said.
Blakely, who owns a farm in nearby Snoqualmie Valley, predates the black-and-beige office buildings on Redmond Ridge that now house SpaceX and Starlink. Those companies turned what was once a quiet community into a busy neighborhood full of traffic, Blakely said.
Musk “has his right to be here” as a business owner, Blakely said. “But when he started messing with our government, that’s very different.”
The weekly protests are “something our community can do,” she continued. “I had to do something.”
Anti-Musk actions have been ramping up since February, as people took to the streets to protest his close alignment with President Donald Trump and the pair’s aggressive agenda. Most of those actions have targeted Tesla, the electric car company that cemented Musk’s position as one of the richest people in the world and enabled his other business ventures, including his purchase of Twitter, now X, in 2022.
In a speech earlier this month when Trump stood in front of Teslas parked on the White House lawn, the president said Musk has been “treated very unfairly by a very small group of people.”
“You can’t be penalized for being a patriot, and he’s a great patriot,” Trump said. “Our country’s going to be very strong very soon because of a lot of things he’s done and a lot of the things that I’m doing.”
Activists have called on consumers to boycott Tesla, sell their electric cars and Cybertrucks and dump their stock in Tesla, which has declined in value by about 38% since the start of the year.
Musk’s space ventures are largely insulated from that type of consumer action – SpaceX and its subsidiary Starlink are not publicly traded companies. Most of their revenue comes from government contracts that have a long shelf life, though some consumers buy internet service through Starlink.
But the public outcry against Musk could still affect SpaceX and Starlink’s future, said Samson Williams, a partner at the space economy think tank Milky Way Economy.
“Investors don’t want to put good money after bad” causes, he said.
That could particularly affect SpaceX and Starlink because “they’re not highly profitable,” Williams said.
Because so much revenue comes from government contracts, Williams expects Starlink could feel the impact of negative consumer sentiment against its founder as early as this fall. That’s when politicians are starting to prepare for midterm elections and have to decide “if they remain attached and loyal to Musk” and risk alienating some constituents who oppose him.
The impact on SpaceX could take longer to become clear, Williams said.
Kimberly Siversen Burke, the director of government affairs for research institute Quilty Space, doesn’t expect to see such a short-term impact because there aren’t many options to replace Musk’s companies right now.
SpaceX is competing with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Kent-based rocket company Blue Origin, while Starlink is competing with Amazon’s satellite venture Project Kuiper. But SpaceX and Starlink are so far ahead of those rivals and other ventures that “there’s really nothing that could compare,” Siversen Burke said.
However, Musk’s increasing involvement with the government could spur increased investment in competitors, as people look for alternatives, Siversen Burke continued.
“The industry is waking up to the reality that SpaceX and Starlink – because of Musk – are unreliable partners in the long run,” she said.
It’s not clear how many employees are based at the SpaceX and Starlink offices in Redmond. The company has not disclosed that information and could not be reached for comment.
On Wednesday, the crowd expressed all sorts of concerns about Musk, Trump and DOGE. Some protesters said they were outraged by proposed cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Others worried about slashed funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Some waved Ukrainian flags, and others held the blue, pink and white flag symbolic of rights for the transgender community.
Some attendees held signs encouraging people to boycott Tesla, but others said they weren’t there to protest Musk’s businesses.
“I have no vendetta against Tesla. It’s how the president is using Elon Musk,” said Jules Hughes, a 58-year-old from Carnation who has been on the sidewalk every Wednesday for the last five weeks.
“There’s a real moral compass” among those in attendance, she said. “They want their government to reflect those values.”
Bruce McDonald, 66, also from Carnation, held a sign that read “yay SpaceX, boo DOGE,” feeling like the employees needed to know the protests weren’t about them.
“Elon’s a complicated person, just like the rest of us,” McDonald said. “SpaceX, Starlink and Tesla are great companies. I’m not against anything other than DOGE.”
Saul Reynolds-Haertle, 34, from Redmond, took Musk’s political ascension more personally, unable to separate the companies from the policies.
Reynolds-Haertle used to love space and the innovations coming from Musk’s companies. But, after watching Musk-led cuts to federal research agencies that address public health and predict changes in climate and weather, Reynolds-Haertle said he can’t support the founder he used to look up to.
“If you had asked me 10 years ago, I was all on board,” he said. “These are important fields making life better for humankind.
“It is deeply unpleasant that the person I used to support has managed to make space uncool.”