As Elon Musk’s business empire falters, Donald Trump summons a wave of conservative support

President Donald Trump sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Before him was Elon Musk. In an expansive mood, Trump offered a favour: 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 favour 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 vandalise 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 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 US DOGE Service. Its cost-cutting efforts - and Musk’s position - have been deeply polarising, 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 per cent 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 capitalised 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 per cent.

“If in fact Tesla’s deliveries are down year over year, I think it is related to brand damage that’s happened,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management. “Because I think people have strong opinions about Elon and they’ve gotten even stronger over the past two months.”

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives boosted the narrative this week in a note to investors titled “A ‘Moment of Truth’ for Musk and Tesla With DOGE,” noting that while Trump’s election was expected to clear the path for autonomous vehicles, it has also “intertwined Tesla into this brewing political firestorm.”

The Tesla event at the White House on Tuesday was the culmination of a year-long transformation in the nation’s most powerful political relationship. Five years ago, toward the end of his first term, Trump was eager to push Musk to commit to building his next Tesla factory in the United States - securing a win for domestic manufacturing.

A skeptic of electric vehicles, Trump told Musk in the Oval Office meeting that he owned Teslas, but there was nowhere to charge them. Musk prompted a Tesla executive in the room to show Trump the vast network of Tesla superchargers, mapped in a sea of red dots on his phone.

The meeting, which included the offer of a favour, was cordial and focused on Trump’s goals for his agenda, according to two people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private matter, who confirmed aspects of the conversation. But privately, according to one of the people, Trump would mock the extent to which Musk’s wealth - largely tied up in his companies and used as collateral for loans - was leveraged, in addition to the fact that Musk’s companies thrived off government subsidies and contracts.

“I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg’ and he would have done it …” Trump later said of Musk in that meeting, in a Truth Social post.

Despite his electric vehicle scepticism and occasionally difficult relationship with Musk, in his 2024 campaign, Trump would come to rely on the entrepreneur’s massive wealth to propel him and Republican candidates to office.

To Musk critics, the news conference looked like the ultimate favour from Trump, a harbinger for a broader range of conflict of interest concerns around Musk’s business. Trump officials already appear to be providing help to Musk’s internet provider Starlink. After employees of its parent company SpaceX took on roles at the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency examined deploying Starlink satellite internet terminals in place of an existing communications contract, The Post has previously reported.

Four Senate Democrats have asked the US Office of Government Ethics to recommend that Musk and Trump’s promotion of Tesla be investigated. Gerry Connolly (D-Virginia), the top member of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to Trump’s counsel David Warrington on Wednesday, inquiring about potential ethics violations.

Connolly asked the White House to identify which government employees helped stage the event. He is also seeking to know what communications White House officials had with Tesla before the event and who in the White House has a financial interest in the car company and what role, if any, they played in organising the event. The White House has until March 26 to reply.

“Americans are struggling to afford groceries, childcare, and housing,” Connolly wrote. “President Trump’s solution to the mounting economic crises is a car ad that he hoped would boost the stock price of Tesla, a company headed by one of his biggest campaign donors who is also a federal employee, Elon Musk.”

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.”

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