{"id":81105,"date":"2025-03-11T16:52:52","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T20:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=81105"},"modified":"2025-03-11T16:52:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T20:52:52","slug":"us-president-does-infomercial-at-white-house-for-company-owned-by-his-biggest-political-donor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=81105","title":{"rendered":"US President does infomercial at White House for company owned by his biggest political donor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\"Trump<\/figure>\n

Donald Trump, the President of the United States, performed what basically amounts to an infomercial at the White House for Tesla, a company controlled by his biggest political donor, a day after its stock crashed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Tesla\u2019s stock crashed 15% \u2013 resulting in a 50% drop from its peak in December.<\/p>\n

Last night, Trump posted a message on Truth Social supporting Elon Musk, Tesla\u2019s CEO and his biggest political donor. In the message, he called the Tesla boycotts \u201cillegal\u201d and he said that he would be buying a Tesla vehicle to show his support for Musk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He has apparently followed through today, but he went a quite a bit further as he held a press conference in front of Tesla vehicles at the White House:<\/p>\n

\tAdvertisement – scroll for more content<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

The President, who has previously shared misinformation about electric vehicles being \u201cunusable,\u201d praised Tesla\u2019s vehicles and said that he would be buying a Model S Plaid.<\/p>\n

He is not allowed to drive, so he said that he would let White House staff use the vehicle instead.<\/p>\n

The President was photographed with notes that included talking points about Tesla\u2019s pricing and \u201cFull Self-Driving\u201d features:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

It falsely claimed that \u201call cars have self-driving, just needs to be turned on\u201d, which is misleading since Tesla vehicles are incapable of self-driving. They are equipped with a level 2 ADAS system that requires the supervision of a driver at all times, and Tesla takes no responsibility in the case of an accident.<\/p>\n

Tesla\u2019s stock (TSLA) rose up 5% on the publicity stunt today, but it closed up 3.8% compared to being down 15% yesterday.<\/p>\n

Electrek\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n

When I write those headlines, I feel like I\u2019m running The Onion in an alternative universe where satire is the reality. <\/p>\n

But you can\u2019t accuse me of \u201cclickbaiting\u201d because this headline is actually accurate.<\/p>\n

For years, Trump has been one of the biggest promoters of misinformation about electric vehicles in the US. We have often reported on the ridiculous things he has said about them.<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t changed. In fact, Trump is still pushing hard against electric vehicles. We recently reported on Trump shutting down 8,000 EV chargers at federal buildings<\/a> and he is pushing to remove the tax credit on electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

This is purely transactional. Elon gave him $250 million, so now that Tesla\u2019s stock is in free fall, he gives him a boost. <\/p>\n

Like his Bitcoin pump, it isn\u2019t likely to work. My hope is that it will at least help open the minds of some of his fans to electric vehicles, but I have doubts.<\/p>\n

\n

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.<\/em> More.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump, the President of the United States, performed what basically amounts to an infomercial at the White House for Tesla, a company controlled by his biggest political donor, a day after its stock crashed. Yesterday, Tesla\u2019s stock crashed 15% \u2013 resulting in a 50% drop from its peak in December. Last night, Trump posted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}