- President Donald Trump told his supporters on Truth Social that a pressure campaign targeting Elon Musk is conspiratorial and against the law, despite the Supreme Court ruling that boycotts largely fall under the domain of free speech.
U.S. President Donald Trump declared on Monday that a pressure campaign meant to hurt sales of Elon Musk’s Tesla EVs was against the law—at least in his eyes.
“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 posted to his followers on Truth Social on Monday.
Trump then called upon his supporters to defend Musk and promised to momentarily set aside his general opposition to electric vehicles in solidarity.
“I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk,” Trump claimed.
Boycotts and free speech
The Tesla CEO has denied the legitimacy of boycotts against him, accusing the Democratic party of astroturfing pressure campaigns like the Tesla Takedown boycott. He believes they are not the result of grassroots opposition and would not exist were it not for megadonors like billionaire George Soros financing them (Soros’s Open Society philanthropic foundation denied Musk’s claim in a statement to Fortune).
Trump's claim of an illegal boycott is reminiscent of Musk's in a lawsuit last year, which alleges that companies not buying ads on X is tantamount to an anti-consumer cartel rather than an expression of free speech.
However, consumer boycotts largely fall under the category of constitutionally protected free speech.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly turned back challenges aimed at declaring undesirable boycotts illegal, with one notable exception—when the goal is purely to better oneself financially rather than voice a political view.
Trump’s claim of collusive behavior—i.e., conspiratorial and covert in nature—also appears difficult to support. Tesla Takedown organizers are openly calling for more consumers to join for obvious reasons: the more people know of their campaign, the greater their reach and the more pressure they can apply to the world’s wealthiest entrepreneur.
Trump signed an executive order "Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship" on his first day in office, but Monday's claim that the anti-Musk boycott is illegal marks the second time in as many days that he has challenged the legality of expressing political opinions he does not agree with—the first being the arrest and planned deportation of Palestinian Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil.
Broad remit
Musk has been one of the President's most vocal supporters since before he was elected to a second term, attending rallies in battleground states on his behalf and marshaling the combined might of the Rogansphere (fans of podcaster Joe Rogan) to support the then candidate’s cause.
After spending nearly a quarter billion dollars of his own money in the 2024 campaign, Musk has remained close to Trump. He attended the government's first full cabinet meeting, held a press briefing in the Oval Office, and celebrated holidays with the First Family at Mar-a-Lago.
While Musk often describes his role as offering "tech support" to the Trump administration, he has been given largely free rein to reshape the executive branch to his liking.
He has fired federal workers, secured access to the sensitive personal data of Americans, and pushed the defunding of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by alleging systemic fraud.
A recent Quinnipiac poll found that a majority of all Americans believe the entrepreneur wields too much influence.
Democrat voters overwhelmingly fear the system of checks and balances has been circumvented by the current administration, although 57% of Republicans disagree.
