BERKELEY, Calif. — Over 1,000 demonstrators filled the street in front of a Tesla dealership Saturday in this Bay Area city synonymous with the free speech movement of the late 1960s, to voice their displeasure with Elon Musk’s efforts to dramatically scale down the federal workforce.
“This whole thing about an unelected person doing so much damage to the federal government… I really wanted to come out,” Esther Hill, 66, a retired former employee of the Environmental Protection Agency, told Yahoo News. “I know how much good is being done by these so-called federal bureaucrats.”
A week ago, just 200 people turned out for Berkeley’s “Tesla Takedown” protest, where a Trump supporter brandished a taser at demonstrators before being arrested. At this week’s protest, which was part of what organizers dubbed a “Global Day of Action,” police closed off traffic on the block of Fourth Street where the Tesla showroom is located…