Summary
Elon Musk gave Donald Trump a scripted sales pitch during a White House event where Trump inspected Teslas.
Photographers captured Trump holding notes with phrases like “SAFEST car” and “affordable.” The stunt followed a 15% drop in Tesla’s stock, linked to backlash over Musk’s involvement in DOGE.
Trump defended Musk on Truth Social, blaming the decline on a “Radical Left” boycott.
Meanwhile, Musk’s other ventures, including X and SpaceX, are struggling with outages and test failures.
I’ve been saying option 2 was in full force after Elmo went right wing years ago. You see it here in Arizona. The Trump right wingers are not principled outside of religion, and even then there’s an argument against that. If there’s a lack of principals, and their opinions are handed to them by Fox News and Newsmax, then option 2 is entirely conceivable. Anecdotally, I see a lot more conservatives going electric now that they have a brand that shares their values. Anyone remember how right wing people hated social media a decade ago? They didn’t really hate social media, they hated that their views weren’t popular there.