Trump shops for Teslas at White House to back Elon Musk
In China – the world’s biggest EV market – Tesla is among the manufacturers struggling to keep up with domestic champion BYD
[NEW YORK] US President Donald Trump said he would purchase a Tesla to keep at the White House for the use of his staff in a sign of support for Elon Musk, after shares of the electric-car maker had their worst day in four years amid a growing backlash over Musk’s political allegiances.
Five of the automaker’s vehicles – encompassing the range of models currently available – were presented to Trump on the driveway ringing the South Lawn of the White House. He ultimately settled on a red Model S.
Trump said he wanted to pay full price for the car and praised Musk as a “patriot” who he said was being unfairly maligned for his slash-and-burn effort to reduce government spending.
“Our country is going to be very strong, very smooth, because of a lot of the things that he’s done,” Trump said, crediting Musk for his ability to “find billions and billions and billions of US dollars of fraud and waste”.
Trump announced his intention to buy a car overnight, after Tesla shares had tumbled 15 per cent on Monday (Mar 10) after analysts including UBS Group’s Joseph Spak cut delivery projections. Wall Street had already begun downgrading their price targets on the stock and lowering earnings estimates. Shares rebounded 5 per cent on Tuesday.
Trump discounted questions about whether it was appropriate to tout the vehicles produced by a company controlled by Musk, who spent more than US$250 million to help elect Trump and other Republicans and is now the face of the president’s efforts to cut the size of the US government.
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“He has never asked me for a thing, and he’s built this great company that he should not be penalised because he’s a patriot,” Trump said.
In addition to disruptions related to changing over its most important model to a new design, blowback against Musk, who is Tesla’s chief executive officer, is hurting the automaker’s standing in some of the world’s biggest electric vehicle (EV) markets.
In Germany, for instance, registrations plummeted 70 per cent during the first two months of the year as Musk endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany in the months leading up to the Feb 23 election.
In China – the world’s biggest EV market – Tesla is among the manufacturers struggling to keep up with domestic champion BYD. Vehicle shipments from the Musk-led company’s plant in Shanghai plunged 49 per cent in February to just 30,688 vehicles, the lowest monthly figure since July 2022.
Trump denounced violence at Tesla dealerships and threatened to go after the perpetrators.
“We are going to catch you, and you are going to go through hell,” he said.
Monday’s drop in Tesla shares was the biggest single-day decline since September 2020. The stock is down 45 per cent in 2025 and has lost all of its gains since Trump won the US presidential election in November and investors pumped more than US$700 billion into Tesla shares.
Meanwhile, Musk’s net worth has dropped by more than US$130 billion since January, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Musk was asked earlier on Monday how he was running his other businesses while focusing on DOGE, in an interview with former Trump adviser Larry Kudlow on Fox Business. The world’s richest man responded: “with great difficulty”. BLOOMBERG
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