Tesla’s stock price has plummeted ever since Donald Trump was elected President of the United States and Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined his administration. Since Trump took office, Tesla stock is down more than 40 percent. But Trump did what he could to help this week.
On Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump shopped for a new Tesla on the lawn of the White House in front of the media, selecting a red Tesla Model S which retails for roughly $80,000. Trump said that he would write a check for the car and leave it at the White House so his staff can drive it.
“Wow,” Trump said about the car as he entered the driver’s seat according to the Associated Press. “That’s beautiful.”
Trump also noted that the dashboard is “all computer” – much different than any other car that he’s driven previously.
The president said that he hopes his purchase and his public praise for the car will provide a bit of a boost to Tesla, which has struggled since he took office.
Trump called the cars a “great product” and pointed to Elon Musk, saying “we have to celebrate him.”
Musk, of course, is the richest man in the world and has taken a prominent role in Trump’s administration as a crucial part of the Department of Government Efficiency where he claims to be “auditing” different agencies within the federal government and cutting costs.
This move came after Trump announced overnight that he was going to buy a Tesla in “a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.”
“Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “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.”
Trump went on to say at a business roundtable that Musk “shouldn’t be sacrificed or have to suffer because he wants to help the government.”
Again, it is worth noting that Musk is the richest man on the planet, with a personal net worth that is around 4.2 million times greater than the median household income in the United States. Simply put, it would take the median American household around 4.2 million years to accumulate as much wealth as Musk, assuming all economic factors remained consistent.
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