Why the White House Car Show Mattered to Musk

New York Times

12-03-2025

It wasn't so long ago that Elon Musk couldn't even get an invitation to the White House.
The year was 2021, and President Joe Biden was announcing tighter pollution rules and promoting his electric vehicle policies.
Behind him on the lawn were gleaming examples — a Ford F-150 Lightning, a Chevrolet Bolt EV, a Jeep Wrangler — as well as the chief executives of the companies that made them. But the nation's biggest electric vehicle producer was nowhere to be seen.
'Seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited,' Musk tweeted before the event.
The Biden White House explained the snub by noting that the automakers that had been invited were the nation's three largest employers of the United Automobile Workers, a powerful union, and it suggested that the administration would find other ways to partner with Tesla. (Union animus toward electric vehicles later became a problem for Biden.) But today, the moment is seen as a turning point in a feud between Musk and Biden that some Democrats say they have come to regret deeply.
'They left Elon out,' said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who is working to get his party to embrace electric vehicles, 'and now he hates 'em.'
It was hard not to think about that episode yesterday when Musk and Trump lined up Teslas, including Cybertrucks, on the White House driveway and proceeded to rattle off their benefits like denizens of a suburban showroom.
'I love the product,' Trump said.
'Try it,' Musk said. 'You'll like it!'
Musk now has the White House attention and promotion that he wanted several years ago — and with it, a pile of potential benefits for some of his companies — but it's come at a price. He donated some $300 million largely through his own super PAC to help Trump get elected. My colleagues Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman reported yesterday that he's signaled a willingness to put another $100 million into groups controlled by Trump's political operation.
His alliance with Trump has also eaten into his customer base. Before the election, Murphy said, Democrats were four times more likely than Republicans to buy an electric vehicle. Now, sales of Teslas are slumping, and some Democrats are turning theirs back in to dealers.
Musk may be hoping to find a new market on the other end of the political spectrum. Trump, who has spent years denigrating electric vehicles, insisted he was buying one, with a check. Sean Hannity, the Trump ally, said he, too, would buy a Tesla Model S Plaid as a show of solidarity with Musk.
'This thing rips,' he said on his show, 'and you can go 400 miles without a charge.'
47 percent
That's the size of the staff cuts at the Education Department, an agency that Trump has said he wants to eliminate. The department announced on Tuesday that it was firing some 1,300 employees. Another 572 employees took separation packages offered in recent weeks, and 63 probationary workers were terminated last month. The department started the year with more than 4,100 workers.
The cuts struck a blow to efforts that measure achievement in U.S. schools. At least 800 Education Department research employees and outside partners have lost their jobs.
$TSLA
Musk is using his X account as a megaphone. My colleague Kate Conger guides you through his most important messages in recent days.
Musk initially celebrated his White House car show on Tuesday, but his posts on X eventually took a darker turn.
By Wednesday, he was promoting theories that protests and vandalism at Tesla dealerships were part of a Democrat-funded effort to undermine him.
'The dirty tricks campaign against me & my companies happened exactly as predicted,' he wrote, re-sharing an old post that predicted Democrats would turn on him because of his support for Republicans.
Musk shared posts from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, in which she called for an investigation into Democratic advocacy groups that she claimed were paying for protests against Tesla.
Soon '$TSLA' was trending on X, as Tesla investors celebrated the stock's rally after losses earlier in the week. Shares in the electric vehicle maker rose seven percent after Musk's White House appearance, showing the power of his proximity to the president to help his companies.
The meaning of Musk's suit
Elon Musk did something unusual last week: He put on a suit and tie, twice. My colleague Shawn McCreesh, a White House reporter, took that to be a sign of a demotion. I asked Shawn to tell us a little more.
Why does it matter so much that Musk decided to wear a suit last week?
I think there is a costume element to Musk's marauding through the capital — that 'Tech Support' T-shirt he constantly wears, and the little joke he tells when he wears it, is very much part of the whole shtick.
This sudden change of wardrobe coincided with a few other things happening around him last week that sure looked like the beginning of a power clampdown. That this most classic and essential of Washington symbols — the gray suit and tie — should also be the symbol of his subjugation was fascinating.
Musk was back to the old blazer-and-T-shirt look at the Tesla event yesterday. What does that mean?
It's his look, which I guess Trump will continue to tolerate. That he does says a lot about Musk's power and influence in Trump's court, because Trump absolutely loves suits. He has written about his love of them in several of his books over the years. It is his costume. It is what people wear when they dress up as him for Halloween.
Rulers throughout history have had strict rules about how their courts are allowed to dress. King Louis IV, for example, had a rule that only a select group of noblemen could wear a certain blue silk jacket like his. Louis also loved diamonds, brocaded coats, elaborate wigs and shoes with red heels that symbolized the blood of his enemies whom he vowed to crush under his feet.
Some people in Washington who dress slovenly on purpose — like John Fetterman and, to a degree, Bernie Sanders — do so to signal that they are one of the people. Musk strikes me as the opposite. His informality seems to be about reminding everyone that he is in a league of his own.
Tell us, Shawn — when do you wear a suit?
Well, after writing about this topic, I felt it'd be rather hypocritical not to wear one. So I've got a suit on today.
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