About 60 Protesters Took Party Buses to Elon Musk's West Lake Hills Area Home - Pinatas, Speeches, and No Incidents, Reports Say
Two Fly-Rides party buses delivered roughly 60 people to the 'People Over Billionaires Election After Party' outside Elon Musk's Austin-area home on Saturday, in a demonstration organized by VOCAL-TX, the Center for Popular Democracy and People's Action. Austin police responded to an alcohol report and found no evidence of alcohol use; the gathering was peaceful.
AUSTIN - Roughly 60 protesters arrived in the West Lake Hills area outside Austin aboard two blue Fly-Rides party buses on Saturday for a demonstration outside Elon Musk's Texas home, billed by its organizers as the 'People Over Billionaires Election After Party,' according to Fox News reporting summarized by Gadget Review on Tuesday. The event included music, dancing, party hats, refreshments, speeches and a conga line, and it ended with participants destroying two pinatas - one star-shaped, one modeled on a Tesla Cybertruck.
The demonstration was organized by VOCAL-TX, the Center for Popular Democracy and People's Action, whose stated goal, as they described it, was to oppose the outsized role of wealthy donors in elections, with Musk as the specific target. It followed an election cycle in which several candidates Musk backed lost, among them Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's bid for a U.S. Senate seat.
Austin police responded to a report involving alcohol at the event and found no evidence of alcohol use; coverage described the gathering as peaceful, and it ended without incident. Organizers described the West Lake Hills event as part of a wider protest movement aimed at Musk's political and business influence, including demonstrations at Tesla locations in multiple states; the Austin event involved none of the vandalism reported at some earlier events elsewhere.
The money behind the organizers drew its own coverage. Fox News pointed to coordinated transportation, pre-made signage, coalition backing and nonprofit revenues as evidence of professional organization; organizers describe their work as community-based and grassroots - a characterization the report notes remains contested. The organizations' most recent tax filings, as cited in the report: the Center for Popular Democracy reported about $40.9 million in 2024 revenue, VOCAL-NY - which fiscally sponsors VOCAL-TX - about $13.1 million, and the People's Action Institute about $2.1 million; the combined $56.1 million figure reflects the separate organizations' individual annual revenues, not a shared protest fund.
