On Monday, as the stock market plunged, President Donald Trump was busy posting on Truth Social, ignoring the chaos unfolding in the economy. The Nasdaq dropped 4%, its worst day since 2022, while the S&P 500 fell nearly 3%. Major tech companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla, all suffered losses. Tesla, under Elon Musk’s leadership, took the hardest hit with a 15% drop in stock price.
As the hashtag “#stockmarketcrash” trended on X, Trump spent hours reposting articles praising his presidency. Between noon and 6 p.m., he posted over a hundred times, celebrating his policies and ignoring the impact on the market, even as investors scrambled to respond to the financial disaster.
One of the key issues Trump highlighted was the tariffs his administration placed on goods from countries like China, Canada, and Mexico. Despite the market’s struggles, Trump continued to defend his policies, reposting articles like “Trump’s Tariffs Will Create Millions of Jobs” and “Trump’s Outside The Box Thinking Could Spark Supply-Side Revolution Not Seen Since Reagan.”
Trump also shared more articles praising his presidency, including one that suggested he should win a Nobel Peace Prize and reposted a headline calling him “The Tiger Woods of presidents.”
The president also spent a lot of time praising Elon Musk, calling him a “truly great American.” He aimed to boost support for Tesla as the company’s stock continued to drop. Musk’s leadership at Tesla has faced criticism recently, and its stock has been falling for seven weeks in a row—the longest losing streak in 15 years.
Trump blamed the “Radical Left Lunatics” for Tesla’s struggles, claiming they were boycotting the company to harm Musk and his efforts. He also suggested that Musk was being unfairly attacked just as he was. Trump posted, “To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.”
Trump continued, “They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???”
However, there’s no evidence that boycotting Tesla is illegal. Consumers are free to choose which products they buy, and some people are simply opting not to buy Tesla vehicles. Analysts say there are other factors affecting Tesla’s struggles, such as competition from European and Chinese automakers and the release of a new version of Tesla’s popular Model Y.
Some experts believe Musk’s comments about politics could hurt Tesla even more. “Musk thinks he can say anything he wants and doesn’t think Tesla will suffer any consequences,” said Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein. “Tesla was in the sweet spot. Now it has competition.”
Despite the rough day for the stock market, a White House official tried to downplay the situation. The official suggested the market’s downturn was driven by “irrational fears” and that the business landscape looked much more positive.
Trump, however, seemed to agree with the fear driving the market’s decline. When asked if he expected a recession, Trump told Fox News, “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big… Ultimately it will be good.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later tried to reassure the public, saying there would be no recession and that the U.S. economy would see significant growth under Trump’s leadership.
