“I’m going to buy because number one, it’s a great product. As good as it gets. Number two, because this man [Elon Musk] has devoted his energy and his life to doing this, and I think he has been treated unfairly,” Trump told reporters outside the White House in the afternoon.
Trump delivered the remarks alongside Musk and Musk’s son, just hours after he first announced on social media he would buy a Tesla in support of the tech entrepreneur.
Tesla’s stock has plummeted more than 50 percent since late last year and suffered its largest drop in more than four years Monday.
It follows a string of protests at Tesla warehouses across the country from demonstrators calling out Musk’s leadership of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the mass layoffs and spending cuts associated with it.
Some Tesla vehicles have been vandalized on the streets, while some Tesla owners have put bumper stickers displaying messages like “I bought it before Elon went nuts.”
“The ongoing and heinous acts of violence against Tesla by radical Leftist activists are nothing short of domestic terror,” Trump spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a later statement to The Hill.
“President Trump has been clear, these attacks, or any other attack to intimidate or coerce our government or it’s people will not stand in President Trump’s America,” Fields added.
Musk acknowledged the toll his political career had taken on his business empire, telling FOX Business Network host Larry Kudlow in a Monday interview he has been overseeing his companies “with great difficulty.”
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
