Elon Musk helps Donald Trump pick $80,000 Tesla Model S

Donald Trump bought a cherry-red Tesla as the electric carmaker’s CEO Elon Musk helped the U.S. president pick a car among five models on display on the White House driveway.

Tesla's Model S is priced at roughly $80,000 in the U.S. Trump told reporters that he would write a cheque for the car.

This comes a day after Trump vowed to buy a brand new Tesla as a show of confidence and support for Musk amid growing calls for a boycott of the electric carmaker.

“Number one: It's a great product, as good as it gets—and number two, because Elon Musk has devoted his energy and his life to doing this and I think he has been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people. I just want people to know that you can’t be penalised for being a patriot and he is a great patriot,” Trump told reporters.

Trump said Musk has done an incredible job with Tesla and nobody else has been this successful. “Because he has been able to find billions of dollars of waste and fraud... he shouldn’t be penalised. It should be the opposite. Because he is finding all sorts of terrible things that have taken place against our country, they want to penalise him in an economic sense. So I am going to make a statement,” said Trump. “Our country is going to be very strong very soon because of a lot of the things he has done and a lot of things I am doing. There is no better team.”

While Trump has kept his promise by buying a new Tesla car, the U.S. president will not be able to drive one. “But here’s is the bad news. I am not allowed to drive. I haven’t driven a car in a long time but I am going to have it at the White House. I am going to let my staff use it. They are all excited about that,” he said.

Musk told reporters that Tesla will double its production output in the U.S. over the next two years. “As a function of the great policies of President Trump and his administration, and as an act of faith in America, Tesla is going to double vehicle output in the United States within the next two years,” said Musk.

Tesla will start production of Cybercab in Texas next year, said Musk. “We have so much confidence in self-driving instrument that it will not have a steering wheel and paddles. It will either self drive or not drive at all,” he said.

Tesla shares recorded their worst single-day drop in nearly half a decade. The company’s stock tanked 15.43% on Monday amid concerns over slow EV sales and Musk’s role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Trump administration, which has drawn criticism from several quarters.