The online grumbling started in early April. In the r/Alameda Reddit someone posted, “No one wants that here,” followed by “With the price of eggs right now, doing what I’d wanna do at this event could get pretty expensive.” On the Alameda Peeps Facebook group, commenters posted “Ew,” “Boooo,” and “Gross.”
They were reacting to the Tesla Takeover event, a convention of Tesla fans featuring a lineup of guest speakers including influencers, YouTube personalities, investors, and the vice president of vehicle engineering at Tesla. The event, which was later renamed X Takeover, was purportedly going to be held at Alameda Point.
Many Alameda residents did not take kindly to the event given the recent involvement of CEO Elon Musk’s outsized role in the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and his ultra-right-wing leanings—including an arm gesture which looked very much like a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration.
Musk was not involved in the event, but for many people, it has been difficult to separate the CEO’s actions with the car. In regards to the X Takeover event, a reader messaged the Alameda Post, “It needs to be stopped. There will be a MAGA parade down my street.”
The Post reached out repeatedly to X Takeover organizers to find out more about the event, but did not receive a response. After emailing Sarah Henry, Communications & Legislative Affairs Officer for the City of Alameda, the Post learned that a permit was never issued for the event and that the X Takeover organizers had simply assumed that they could use Alameda Point for their event.
“When the City discovered that event organizers were publicizing Alameda Point as the venue without an approved permit, we immediately directed them to remove our location from their materials,” Henry stated. “They were also informed that the City would not be issuing a permit for this event, so they did not submit their application.”
The website for the X Takeover event now has a vague reference to taking place in the “San Francisco Bay Area” and is still selling non-refundable tickets which range from $22.83 to $65.32 VIP tickets.
Not all Alameda residents were happy that the X Takeover event is no longer taking place in Alameda. M (identified only by his first initial for fear of receiving hate over his views), bought a Tesla in 2023. He messaged the Post that he has a “distaste” for Musk, but was considering attending the event: “It would have been a cool opportunity to hear from their leadership (e.g. VP of engineering ) as well as some prominent/knowledgeable folks in the auto space (e.g. Sandy Munro—he is basically a celebrity!) on how they are innovating and continuing to create more environmentally friendly vehicles.”
He added, “I think folks forget that Elon only has like 11% equity ownership and there is an entire company of mission driven folks there… And that’s why a lot of folks bought the cars in the first place.”
Editor’s note: Musk owns about 12% of Tesla excluding options.
Jean Chen is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Jean-Chen.
