Trump Said That Boycotting Tesla Is “Illegal,” And Lawyers Are Laughing So Hard At Him
In todays edition of “Every Day Is A Fresh New Hell,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in defense of supporter and unelected bureaucrat Elon Musk.
A Truth Social post wherein Donald Trump praises Elon Musk for helping the nation and criticizes those boycotting Tesla, calling the boycott illegal
Normally, Trump’s Truth Social ramblings are very ignorable, but this one has tickled people…in particular, lawyers and legal experts. See, Trump said that the “Radical Left Lunatics” are “trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla.”
Trump and Musk stand together; Trump in a suit with a red cap, Musk in a black leather jacket, gesturing while speaking
For some context, here’s why Trump is posting this in the first place. Since Musk became involved with the Trump administration, Tesla’s stock price has plummeted. You can see in the chart below that the price was just shy of $450 back in January, and is now around $230. That’s a 42%-plus decrease in just a few months.
Stock chart showing a steep decline in TSLA price from mid-January to early March
Of course there are a lot of factors that can influence a stock price (and many consider Tesla to be overvalued anyway), but one could imagine that alienating the largest group of EV purchasers (liberals) and also making a gesture that looks disturbingly similar to a Nazi salute might cause your sales to drop. Many car buyers are boycotting Tesla, and some Tesla owners — including, notably, Sheryl Crow — are trading in their vehicles out of protest.
The comments over in the r/law subreddit — which, as you can imagine, has been discussing Trump a LOT recently — can’t get over the stupidity of one particular section of the post: where Trump calls boycotting Tesla “illegal.” Of course, boycotts aren’t illegal: First off, Americans have a right to protest under the First Amendment (for now), and second, if it was illegal to boycott, the enforcement of that would be forcing everyone to buy a Tesla (????).
Reddit comment from Oystermeat: “So I’m breaking the law if I don’t buy one? This is idiotic”
Others in the subreddit pointed out that Trump’s post itself is much closer to being illegal than a Tesla boycott, because of the Hatch Act, which prevents elected officials from engaging in political campaigns.
Comment from jackleggjr: “Guess the Hatch Act isn’t effective anymore. What’s illegal is a sitting president selling shit from the White House”
(LOL, remember when people cared about the Hatch Act?)
One commenter pointed out that there is the Anti-Boycott Act of 2018, which would make a boycott illegal if it was “imposed” by a foreign country. Personally, I think it’s much more likely that Americans are fed up with nonsense.
Comment discussion on the legality of boycotting, citing the Anti-Boycott Act of 2018, and a second comment reiterating that it’s impossible to compel people to buy Teslas
Then there’s also the fact that the current administration has been very vocal about ending tax credits for electric vehicle purchases. On the campaign trail, Trump even falsely suggested that Kamala Harris would mandate EVs and end the sale of all gas-powered cars.
First user comments how the administration is removing EV credits, second humorously responds about electric vehicles buying eggs in bathrooms
Seriously, the MAGA crowd was — to say the least — not keen on EVs, in general. Is Trump expecting them to all buy Teslas now? Even the more conservative-targeted Cybertruck is priced starting at $80,000. In this economy?
Comment from nonlawyer saying how they doubt Trump supports are suddenly going to love electric cars now
Meanwhile, over in the r/Fauxmoi subreddit, people just have jokes:
Comment from RandomB: “It really IS Elon’s baby. He’s not around taking care of it, like the other 15 babies he has”
Personally, my favorite bit in all this is Trump said that people were “collusively” boycotting. Uh, yeah, generally if you boycott, you’re colluding with other people to do so.
Anyway, in all of this, one thing is prettttttty clear:
Comment from user BitHistorical: “Ok so the boycott is clearly working.”
