Tag Archives: Donald Trump

#PresidentMusk, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Tesla

Musk desperate, makes wild claims in effort to calm Tesla employees’ fears

Musk deploys squandered credibility in desperate bid to hold ailing Tesla together

The Rachel Maddow Show, March 21, 2025

TRANSCRIPT (Note this has not been proofed for errors. Thanks to ChatGPT):

RACHEL MADDOW >> I mentioned at the top, right at the top, this bizarre story about President Trump’s top campaign donor, Elon Musk, somehow reportedly being slated for the kind of high-level war plans briefing that no campaign donor should ever be invited to.

On the eve of that planned briefing last night, Elon Musk apparently found time to convene an all-hands meeting for employees of his car company, Tesla. They called this all-hands meeting for every employee of the company for 9 p.m. last night. They scheduled it as a livestream event on Twitter, which is owned by Mr. Musk. The livestream promptly crashed and shut down for about half an hour. They eventually got it restarted, whereupon Mr. Musk got online with his employees at his car company and begged them not to sell their stock in Tesla, which many Tesla executives and board members have recently done.

He told his employees that things were about to become immeasurably better, unimaginably better. Quote, “What’s the most exciting future that you could possibly imagine?” A future of abundance for all, where you could literally just have anything you want? Elon Musk explained to his employees that these unimaginably good times are right around the corner.

He told Tesla employees, literally, “Hang on to your stock.” He told them, there are times when there are rocky moments, a little bit of stormy weather. But I’m here to tell you the future is bright and exciting. He also told them that they should feel good about these reassurances from him and definitely not sell their stock the way his executives and board members have been. They should really feel good about his assurances about the future because he has such a good track record of his predictions coming true.

He explained this to his employees last night, which occasions—I feel like it’s only fair—just a reminder of what his predictions have actually been like over time. This, for example, was Elon Musk speaking in 2017:

“I think we’re still on track for being able to go cross-country from LA to New York by the end of the year. Fully autonomous.”

“So, by the end of the year, you’re saying someone’s going to sit in a Tesla without touching the steering wheel, tap in New York, and off it goes?”

“Yeah. Won’t have to ever touch the wheel by the end of 2017. Yeah. Essentially, November or December of this year, we should be able to go all the way from a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York. No controls touched at any point during the entire journey. Amazing.”

Imagine if you were in the audience at that event, looking back now in 2025, and realizing that you might have been one of the people who applauded that. Did you buy stock too? I love the part where he’s like, “November, maybe December,” like he thinks it’s a speaking engagement in 2017, and he’s saying, “By November—might be December—but then we’ll have it.”

Then the following year, in 2018, he said, “Yeah, actually rescheduled. Now it’s going to happen by 2019.”

“I think probably by the end of next year, self-driving will encompass essentially all modes of driving and be at least 100 to 200% safer than a person by the end of next year. We’re talking like maybe 18 months from now.”

So that was him in 2019 saying, “No, no, no. I was saying it would all be done by 2019.” This was him in 2019 saying, “No, no, maybe it’ll be done by 2020, but by then it’s not going to be your own car. By then it’s going to be taxis. The taxis are going to be driving themselves by 2020.”

“I feel very confident in predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year.”

Autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year. By 2020.

Luckily, by the time none of these things came to pass when he said they would, none of us cared. Because as of then—meaning as of now—we’re all living on Mars.

“I think if things go according to plan, we should be able to launch people probably in 2024, with arrival in 2025.”

Again, he’s just doing the math right there. You see him squint? “Well, we’re going to be… How long will it take to… 2024. We’re going to be shooting people off to Mars, and they’ll get there by 2025.” Confident.

Here it is, 2025. Mars isn’t nearly as hot as I thought it would be.

These are the kinds of predictions that he has used to stoke the hype around himself and his companies, year after year after year after year. It’s a running joke, right? His predictions. But the faith in Elon Musk and in all the things that he can see coming true in the future has driven him to the position that he’s in now with our U.S. government.

Meanwhile, in his actual businesses, Tesla stock has lost over 50% of its value in the past three months. Edmunds.com just reported that more people are trading in their Teslas than ever before. The share of Teslas among all cars they’re seeing being traded in is 300% higher right now than it was this time last year.

When JP Morgan radically slashed their forecast for Tesla sales this quarter, their analysts said this week, “We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly.”

And that was before we found out that they were recalling nearly all Cybertrucks on the road for the eighth time—this time for the risk of pieces of the body coming loose and flying off in traffic.

Weirdly, that kind of thing shouldn’t have to factor into news.

#PresidentMusk, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Tesla

Tesla sales falling, trade-ins at record high

Are drivers ditching Teslas? Edmunds reveals findings

A protester poses for a photo with his placard outside the Tesla dealership in London on March 15, 2025. (Krisztian Elek/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The Hill, by Michael Bartiromo – 03/21/25

(NEXSTAR) – Edmunds, a popular online automotive resource, says its data shows a “potential shift” in buyers’ feelings toward Tesla vehicles — based partly on a record-high number of Tesla trade-ins.

The Tesla brand has become a target of criticism by critics of CEO Elon Musk, who is now also an advisor to President Donald Trump and a key figure at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has taken controversial actions to slash government spending.

Musk critics have organized dozens of peaceful demonstrations at Tesla dealerships and factories across North America and Europe. But some dealerships and vehicles have also been vandalized — acts which Attorney General Pam Bondi has labeled “domestic terrorism.”

Some Tesla owners, including U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) who feuded with Musk, have also vowed to get rid of their vehicles. Celebrities including Jason Bateman and Sheryl Crow have done the same thing.

Activists in the San Francisco Bay Area have also hung fliers urging residents to get rid of their “swasticars,” an apparent reference to accusations that Musk attempted to perform Nazi salutes at Trump’s second inauguration in January.

“We can get back at Elon,” a protestor outside a Tesla dealership in Boston told the Associated Press earlier this month. “We can impose direct economic damage on Tesla by showing up at showrooms everywhere and boycotting Tesla and telling everyone else to get out, sell your stocks, sell your Teslas.”

But are these boycotts having any effect?

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Whatever the reason, Tesla trade-ins have reached an all-time high, Edmunds data shows. Specifically, Edmunds observed that Tesla vehicles (model years 2017 or newer) accounted for 1.4% of trade-ins toward non-Tesla cars in March 2025 — a percentage that represents a record high for Tesla. (For comparison, that percentage one year earlier in March 2024 was 0.4%.)

Shoppers aren’t seeking out new Teslas at the same rate they used to, either, at least according to Edmunds. The company’s data shows buyer consideration for new Tesla vehicles fell to 1.8% in February 2025 (the “lowest point since October 2022”) from a high of 3.3% in November 2024.

There has been no significant drop, however, in shoppers seeking out used Teslas. Prices have yet to fall significantly for the brand’s used vehicles, but Edmunds’ analysts are expecting that to change as a result of increased trade-ins.

Protesters demonstrate outside of a Tesla dealership in Seattle on Saturday, March 15, 2025. (David Ryder/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ head of insights, acknowledged that Musk’s political views and relationship to Trump may have alienated current Tesla owners, but believes many just can’t afford to sell off their cars for a new one.

Authoritarian Rule, Democracy under attack, Donald Trump, Facism, MAGA extremists, Oligarchy, Racism

‘Crook, Liar, Racist’: Veteran Reporter Not Afraid to Call Trump What He Is

Calling Trump corrupt and a threat to America are not opinions. They are objective statements of fact.

ZETEO by John Harwood, March 12, 2025
John Harwood is an American journalist. He was the White House Correspondent for CNN from February 2021 until September 2022, after working as an editor-at-large for CNBC. He was the chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and a contributor for The New York Times. Wikipedia

>> Donald Trump’s corrupt, chaotic presidency has propelled a long-running journalistic debate: how to accurately characterize the threat he poses to America.

Indeed, my opening paragraph itself provides grist for that debate. Can a fair-minded reporter flatly describe the president as corrupt and a threat to America itself? Are those facts?

Many colleagues I respect would answer “no.” When I interviewed the great newspaper editor Marty Baron a couple of weeks ago, he cautioned that such descriptions allow Trump to discredit journalists as partisans and are best left to opinion pages.

But I say, “Yes.” Calling Trump corrupt and a threat to America are not opinions. They are objective statements of fact. [emphasis added here – BenIndy]

I never expected to reach this point when I became a journalist 47 years ago. I did not pursue opinion journalism for a reason. My model was my father, Richard Harwood, who built his stellar Washington Post career on fearless reporting and news analysis.

Indeed, dad was appointed the Post’s first ombudsman after an earlier Republican president, Richard Nixon, howled about biased journalism the way Trump denounces “fake news.” An orphaned kid from the Midwest on a newspaper stocked with Ivy Leaguers, he found merit in some of those complaints.

So I began my career at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, well aware of the need to fairly reflect different viewpoints – Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, police officers and college professors, Blacks and whites. My first big political profile was a sympathetic look at a GOP retiree legendary for her success in rounding up votes within her condominium complex.

Crediting the legitimacy of both sides wasn’t difficult then. American politics did not neatly sort the good guys from the bad guys.

John Harwood is an American journalist. He was the White House Correspondent for CNN from February 2021 until September 2022, after working as an editor-at-large for CNBC. He was the chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and a contributor for The New York Times. Wikipedia