U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to buy a “brand new” Tesla car to show his support for billionaire Elon Musk and his company after the automaker’s stock price plunged in one of the worst single day sell-offs in the company’s history.
“To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!” Trump wrote Tuesday 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.”
“They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out?” Trump continued. “In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.”
“Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???” Trump added.
Musk thanked Trump in a post on X, writing, “Thank you, President @realDonaldTrump!”
Tesla shares have plummeted 45 per cent in 2025 and on Monday tumbled more than 15 per cent to $222.15, the lowest since late October, according to The Associated Press. Sales of the vehicles are falling in California, the company’s biggest U.S. market, and the company recorded its first annual global sales decline last year.
Tesla sales plunged 45 per cent in Europe in January, according to research firm Jato Dynamics, even as overall electric vehicle sales rose. The sales numbers were particularly bad in Germany and France.
The latest auto sales figure from China show that Tesla sales there have nearly halved from February a year ago, although the decline is largely due to increased competition from domestic EV companies.
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In recent days, hundreds of protesters have gathered at Tesla showrooms in the U.S. as part of demonstrations against Musk’s high-level involvement with the Trump administration.
On March 8, footage captured during protests at a Manhattan dealership shows police removing a number of demonstrators from inside the premises, where glass doors had been shattered.
People also gathered outside the facility and could be heard chanting, “We need clean air, not another billionaire.”
A woman who identified herself on camera as “Frankie” while officers detained her said she was “getting arrested today for protesting Elon Musk.”
“He bought his way into office, he bought his way into heading a government agency, he bought his power at the expense of the American people, at the expense of our environment, at the expense of our world and all of the people in it,” the woman said.
Six people were arrested, five for disorderly conduct and one for resisting arrest, according to media reports.
Another video posted on Musk-owned social media platform X on Saturday appeared to show nine NYPD officers protecting a single Cybertruck.
“Nine cops to protect one Cybertruck, amazing,” the person filming the video said.
Tesla owners have also placed bumper stickers on their cars with messages like, “I bought it before Elon went crazy.”
Last week, 12 Tesla vehicles were set on fire outside a dealership in Toulouse, France, destroying eight and severely damaging four. Authorities have since opened a criminal investigation.
The same day, seven Tesla charging stations at a mall in Littleton, Mass., about 60 kilometres outside of Boston, were burned, causing heavy damage and sending up plumes of thick smoke.
In February, federal prosecutors charged a woman in connection with a string of vandalism against a Colorado Tesla dealership, which included Molotov cocktails being thrown at vehicles and the words “Nazi cars” spray painted on the building.
The dealership estimated that several incidents of vandalism over the course of about a month caused between $5,000 and $20,000 in damages, with an estimated $5,000 in damage to the vehicles.
In January, following a post-inaugural speech where Musk made multiple Nazi salute-like motions, U.K.- and Germany-based activist groups projected a still image of the billionaire tech mogul mid-gesture alongside the words “Heil Tesla” onto the outside of the company’s Gigafactory in Berlin.
On Monday, Musk admitted he is having “great difficulty” running his businesses as he juggles his advisory role in Trump’s administration, leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In an interview on Fox Business Network’s Kudlow, former Trump administration official Larry Kudlow asked Musk about his “call to action” within the administration and how he’s managing to keep his companies running, including Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and X.
“How are you running your other businesses?” Kudlow asked.
“With great difficulty,” Musk responded.
Musk added that he is “trying to make government more efficient” and to eliminate waste and fraud.
“And so far, we’re making good progress, actually,” he said.
Musk also spoke about his X social media platform that crashed several times on Monday, which he claimed was a “massive” cyberattack.
He claimed on Kudlow that the attackers had “IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” without going into detail.
— With files from Global News’ Rachel Goodman and The Associated Press
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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