[Image: VOA / Facebook]
US President Donald Trump threw Elon Musk a public lifeline yesterday by turning the White House lawn into a car dealership and livestreaming the ‘sales pitch’ on X.
Tesla delivered five of its vehicles to the White House and parked them on a driveway for Trump to personally inspect, hours after he said on Truth Social that he planned to buy a Tesla to demonstrate his support for Musk and for the slumping company.
Calling Musk a “great patriot”, the president said a small group of people have been very unfair towards him while declaring the vehicles “beautiful” and in particular praised the company’s unusually designed Cybertruck.
“As soon as I saw it, I said, ‘That is the coolest design,’” Trump said. “The one I like is that one, and I want the same color,” he said, pointing to a red Model S. The vehicle is listed on the Tesla website for $73,490, or $88,490 for the all-wheel-drive Model S Plaid.
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It is extremely rare for a senior government official, let alone a sitting president, to endorse a consumer product so explicitly. In 2017, when then-Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway told Americans to buy from Ivanka Trump’s clothing line, she received a warning from a government ethics office and promised never to do it again.
The impromptu infomercial predictably drew criticism, most notably from Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, who wrote on the same X platform:
“Just because the corruption plays out in public doesn’t mean it’s not corruption.”
The commercial comes at a crucial time for Tesla as it faces global backlash to Musk’s increasing role in politics. The company’s shares have declined every week since Musk went to Washington, and they fell 15% on Monday. Tesla dealerships have faced a wave of both peaceful and violent demonstrations, including fires at charging stations.
Asked whether his purchase might help Tesla’s stock, Trump said, “I hope it does.” Kind of the point, wasn’t it?
[Source: NBCNews]
