- Elon Musk reportedly plans to donate $100 million to Trump-controlled groups.
- The story broke hours after a bizarre Tesla promo took place outside the White House.
- Trump claimed Musk was being treated unfairly and vowed to buy a Model S.
If you thought Donald Trump only let (unelected) Elon Musk hang around the Oval Office because he’s handy with a chain saw, this news might reveal his other appeal. The Tesla CEO has reportedly indicated he wants to donate $100 million to groups controlled by Trump.
The donation – a record for someone working close to a president – could go to Trump’s political action committees (PACs), according to the New York Times, and will be used to help secure GOP control of the House and Senate in coming mid-term elections. Musk already spent around $290 million through his own PAC helping Trump win the election last year.
Related: Tesla’s Letter Warns Trump Admin That Tariffs Will Skyrocket Prices, But No One’s Owning It
The timing of the news was certainly interesting. Only hours before the NYT story broke, Musk and Trump took part in a surreal Tesla promo in the grounds of The White House shortly after Tesla’s shares tanked. Against a backdrop of five Tesla EVs, including a Model S and a Cybertruck, Trump told reporters that Musk was being unfairly attacked and boycotted by critics, and said he was going to buy a Tesla for himself.
“I’m going to buy one because, number one, it’s a great product, as good as it gets, and number two because [Elon Musk] has donated his energy and his life to doing this and I think he’s being treated very unfairly,” Trump said, referring to recent protests against Tesla.
We do our best to remain apolitical at Carscoops, mindful that we’re united by a shared love for cars, but might not all hold the same political views. And that’s fine: whichever way you voted last November, you’re welcome here. But I suspect plenty of people from both sides of the divide find something distasteful about the highest office in the land being used to promote a bunch of EVs as if it was an ad spot in the Super Bowl.
We’ve seen presidents say broadly positive things about automakers’ products before, such as when Joe Biden drove the Ford F-150 Lightning. But this Tesla love-in felt grubby when we first heard about it on Tuesday and looks even worse in the light of the story about Musk’s planned donation.