Trump turns White House lawn into car lot for megadonor Musk

Things could be better for Elon Musk’s Tesla. As my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem explained, the auto manufacturer is “facing a major slump,” with a drop in international sales and a sinking stock price. It’s a multifaceted problem, to be sure, but as Zeeshan added, “[I]ndustry analysts point to Musk’s emergence as a right-wing extremist meddling in politics across the West” as a likely factor in the company’s woes.

That, of course, is the bad news. The good news, at least for Donald Trump’s biggest campaign donor, is that he has an ally in the West Wing who’s apparently willing to turn himself into a pitch man on Musk’s behalf — while turning the White House into something resembling a car dealership.

Late Monday night, the president used his social media platform to falsely accuse Tesla’s critics of “illegally” boycotting the company — that didn’t make any sense — before announcing that he planned to purchase a Tesla car as a sign of support for his generous contributor and White House aide.

It was a bizarre and unprecedented testimonial, but it was also a precursor of things to come. NBC News reported:

President Donald Trump turned the South Lawn of the White House into a temporary Tesla showroom Tuesday in a conspicuous favor to his adviser Elon Musk, the car company’s billionaire CEO. Tesla delivered five of its vehicles to the White House and parked them on a driveway for Trump to personally inspect, hours after he said on Truth Social that he planned to buy a Tesla to demonstrate his support for Musk and for the slumping company.

There’s never been a White House event quite like this one. The incumbent Republican president praised his megadonor’s vehicles as “beautiful.” He touted the vehicles’ prices. He complimented Musk for selling “a great product.” He expressed hope that Tesla’s stock price would go up. He picked out the model and color of the one he wanted. He heralded Musk’s patriotism. He even took a moment to express a degree of amazement with a computerized dashboard.

All the while, the event — what was effectively an infomercial — was livestreamed on Musk’s social media platform.

This was, by any fair measure, obscene. The White House is not supposed to be used for commercials in support of campaign donors’ consumer products.

“Just because the corruption plays out in public doesn’t mean it’s not corruption,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said in a statement.

It’s an important detail. I can appreciate how easy it is to grow inured to Trump’s depravity, especially when it comes to marketing gimmicks, but turning the White House South Lawn into a showroom for a donor’s product line was a new and nauseating low.

Traditionally, Americans might expect more subtle forms of corruption, with a president placing a few private phone calls to help campaign donors who need a favor for their businesses. Trump, however, threw caution to the wind, ignored norms and ethics, and embraced a far more brazen approach to corruption.

I suspect plenty of American auto manufacturers would love to get this kind of free publicity and unpaid promotional work from a sitting president — but they’re unlikely to get it. Musk donated $288 million to Republicans in the 2024 election cycle, and evidently, that affords him special treatment.

Hours after the event, the public confronted a predictable coda: The New York Times reported that Musk has signaled to the president’s advisers that he intends to “put $100 million into groups controlled by the Trump political operation.”

The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added, “It is unheard-of for a White House staffer, even one with part-time status, to make such large political contributions to support the agenda of the boss.”

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