Amid calls for Musk to step back from the U.S. DOGE Service, Trump is offering a White House lifeline to his biggest donor — further entwining their fates.
President Donald Trump sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Before him was Elon Musk. In an expansive mood, Trump offered a favor: Was there anything the administration could do for the car company Musk leads, Tesla?
Nothing immediately came to mind for Musk during the early 2020 meeting, details of which have not been previously reported.
But last week, Trump appeared to deliver a fantastic favor to the billionaire tech entrepreneur, the biggest donor of the 2024 election cycle and his closest ally. In an unprecedented event — part news conference, part infomercial — the president showcased Tesla vehicles on a White House driveway and announced that he had selected one of them — a cherry red Model S — for himself.
The event sparked a wave of conservative support for Tesla, a company facing a plummeting stock price, investor frustration, consumer boycotts and sometimes violent protests at facilities across the country. As Tesla shareholders press Musk to return his attention to the firm that made him the world’s richest person, the event also highlighted how Musk’s deepening alliance with Trump has been boon and burden to his expansive business empire.
Trump and his deputies are threatening those who vandalize Teslas, saying they will classify anti-Tesla protesters as domestic terrorists. “If you’re going to touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything, you better watch out because we’re coming after you,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a Friday interview on Fox Business. “And if you’re funding this, we’re coming after you. We’re going to find out who you are.”
Meanwhile, Republican politicians and MAGA influencers are urging their supporters to purchase Musk’s EVs. Gesturing at a Tesla in a Friday X post, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said: “This may be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The campaign has triggered an uptick in searches for “Buy a Tesla” in many traditionally red states, according to Google Trends data, and Tesla’s stock has rebounded slightly. But it risks alienating the liberal customers who spawned its early success. And as Tesla falters, some of its executives have eyed opportunities outside the company in recent days, according to a person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
“Musk’s bet that serving — and helping to lead — the MAGA onslaught will benefit him economically is risky to say the least,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University. “Musk’s companies may get so tainted in the eyes of many ordinary citizens that they will suffer irreparable damage to their reputations.”
“The danger for Musk is that he becomes the embodiment of crony capitalism,” Barrett said.
Musk, the White House and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk’s alliance with the president has grown since he poured almost $290 million into electing Trump and other Republican candidates in 2024, culminating in repeated joint appearances and Musk’s role overseeing the U.S. DOGE Service. Its cost-cutting efforts — and Musk’s position — have been deeply polarizing, however. Almost half of Americans disapprove of Musk’s work within the federal government, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.
Until recently, Musk’s involvement with Trump has helped his business empire. But Tesla’s stock is down nearly 35 percent this year, erasing the gains it made after Trump won the election, when investors saw Musk’s proximity to the commander in chief as a coup for the business.
In response to the recent wave of vandalism and protests, Trump supporters are lining up to help reverse the declines.
Lily Tang Williams, who is running for Congress in New Hampshire, posted a video on X of herself in the driver’s seat of a Tesla on Monday.“Radical leftists Marxist communists, they want to shut you down if you do not comply to them, if you’re a threat,” she said to the more than 247,000 followers of her @Lily4Liberty account.
Another activist, former Ohio Republican congressional candidate JR Majewski, posted a photo of a new Tesla with the caption, “Model S Plaid. Thank you Tesla and Elon Musk.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity announced on his cable show that he would buy a Model S, in what he called “a gesture” of solidarity with Musk.
“It’s just a way of saying, you know, look what they’re doing to this guy,” he said. “Look what’s going to happen to the workers at Tesla, the salespeople, the people on the line that are going to lose their job.”
Some business leaders on the right, including pharmaceutical executive and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, have posited that a range of companies could become wildly successful catering only to conservative audiences. While Fox News has capitalized on the premise, investors including Peter Thiel and Omeed Malik, a partner in an investment firm with Donald Trump Jr., have argued an entire “anti-woke” or “parallel” economy is waiting to be tapped.
But some analysts say the conservative support probably is not enough to reverse the decline at Tesla, which has outpaced broader markets by roughly 30 percent.
One person in Musk’s social circle, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private relationship, said he doubted that the pressure on Tesla would cause Musk to shift his attention away from DOGE, which is under instructions to complete its work by July 4, 2026.
“Elon thinks it’s the most important thing in the world to work on, and when he hyperfocuses on a goal that’s what gets done,” the person said. “Nothing will pull him away unless he wants it to.”
