from the free-speech-warriors dept
Elon Musk’s companies aren’t having the best couple of weeks, it seems. ExTwitter suffered from several outages this week, some lengthy, while Musk claimed that it was the result of a DDoS attack and hinted that Ukraine might be to blame. The story of SpaceX thus far in 2025 has mostly been one filled with delays, malfunctions, and the occasional explosion. Last week saw the seventh straight weekly decline of stock price for Tesla.
None of these are insurmountable challenges for the world’s richest man, assuming he still is that after these past few months. Twitter can build more resiliency into its platform if it chooses. The rockets can be fixed. And Tesla’s stock will surely rise at some point. In other words, I can’t claim that all of this is the result of Musk’s purchase of a fugazi cabinet post at DOGE.
But then, I don’t actually have to, since Musk essentially said as much himself recently.
Musk’s support of Trump in the runup to last year’s presidential election and subsequent leadership in his government efficiency initiative has sparked backlash. Analysts have cited this reputational shift as a driver of trouble for the automaker’s stock, which posted its worst day since 2020 on Monday and is down 45% in 2025.
Musk acknowledged the hit to his businesses in an interview Monday, saying he was running them “with great difficulty” because of his high-profile role with this administration. He told Fox Business that as head of DOGE, “you’re giving up your other stuff.”
Then give it the fuck up, my man. If you only have the bandwidth to either run these three companies well or dismantle history’s most successful democracy, then pick one and let’s get on with it. Because the shareholders of Tesla can’t be thrilled to hear that it’s Musk’s efforts to ensure the DOGE team, sometimes referred to as “The Twitler Youth,” makes as many mistakes as possible while on its way to becoming the very thing it was supposedly going to eliminate.
But while every mishap of late for Musk’s companies can’t be pinned specifically on the ire in the public over his callous actions at DOGE, the same cannot be true for the protests occurring at Tesla dealerships, nor the vitriol visited upon owners of Musk’s grotesque Cybertruck. Insults have been hurled at owners of Tesla vehicles with such velocity that some of them want to be considered a protected federal class. And if that isn’t funny to you, then you’re the one with the problem.
While Trump and Musk would have you believe that DOGE’s actions are overwhelmingly popular with the public, the actual polling data appears to range between approval of DOGE being barely above 50% to being far below that number. Meanwhile, the anger at Musk and DOGE is absolutely fueling the protests, property damage, and public outcry at Tesla owners and dealerships.
Somehow, Donald Trump seems to think that boycotting Tesla specifically is illegal. It very much is not.
“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,” Trump wrote in a post published early Tuesday morning on Truth Social.
Trump said “radical left lunatics” are “illegally and collusively” boycotting Tesla, which the president described as one of the best automakers in the world. This action, Trump said, was meant as an attack on Musk and what he stands for.
It is not illegal for consumers to boycott companies. The Supreme Court in 1982 ruled the First Amendment protects Americans’ rights to protest private businesses.
And here’s where we’ll remind you once again that both Trump and Musk are self-ascribed “free speech warriors.” Which is a really funny claim to make of two men who have shown more disdain for free speech than anyone else, while co-running an administration that is the most censorial ever.
But the real danger in all of this is that, while Trump can’t currently punish the free public for protesting, it’s obvious he wants to. Which means he, at least, is no longer operating under the illusion that it’s a democracy he wants. Nor a republic.
This instead is something like authoritarian capitalism.
Filed Under: boycotts, donald trump, elon musk, free speech
Companies: tesla
