U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday, 11th March, that he would purchase a new Tesla car to demonstrate his support for the electric carmaker’s CEO and his ally, Elon Musk, amid the recent “Tesla Takedown” protests and the slump in the company’s stock price.
Musk’s role in implementing sweeping cuts to the federal workforce at Trump’s request has sparked protests against Tesla across the United States.
Approximately 350 demonstrators protested outside a Tesla dealership in Portland, Oregon, last week, while nine people were arrested during a rowdy demonstration outside a New York City Tesla dealership earlier in March.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump defended Musk, stating that he was “putting it on the line” to help the country and was doing a “fantastic” job.
Trump said: “To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is “putting it on the line” in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s “baby,” in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.
“They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.
“Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???”
Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, expressed his gratitude to the president for his support on his social media platform, X.
Tesla’s market capitalisation has fallen by more than half since reaching an all-time high of $1.5 trillion on 17th December, erasing most of the gains made after Musk helped finance Trump’s election victory.
The decline in Tesla’s stock price since December has been attributed to falling vehicle sales and profits, protests over Musk’s political activities, and concerns from investors that politics are distracting the world’s richest man from focusing on his core business.
