Elon Musk, chief govt officer of Tesla Inc., from left, Howard Lutnick, US commerce secretary, stroll on the South Lawn of the White House earlier than boarding Marine One in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, March 14, 2025.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged the general public to “purchase Tesla” inventory, a extremely uncommon promotion by a Cabinet member of an organization whose present buyers have suffered a pointy slide in share worth since December.
Lutnick’s touting of Tesla shares Wednesday night time got here as CEO Elon Musk oversees the extremely controversial DOGE effort to slash the federal workforce for the Trump administration. The firm can also be dealing with a spate of vandalism of Tesla areas and autos across the United States.
Government conflict of interest rules prohibit federal staff from utilizing their “government position or title or any authority associated with his public office to endorse any product, service or enterprise” save for very restricted conditions, none of which appeared to use to Lutnick.
“If you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Lutnick stated throughout an interview on Fox News with Jesse Watters.
“It’s unbelievable,” Lutnick stated, drawing out the final phrase, “that this guy’s stock is so cheap.”
“It’ll never be this cheap again,” Lutnick continued, subsequent to a cut up display of video displaying flames from Teslas in Las Vegas that had been set on hearth by Molotov cocktails earlier within the week.
Tesla has shed a whole lot of billions of {dollars} in market capitalization since its inventory’s sharp slide started in December, a month after President Donald Trump was elected.
Burned Teslas are proven at a Tesla Collision Center after a person used incendiary units to set a number of autos on hearth on March 18, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
“When people understand the things he’s building, the robots he’s building, the technology he’s building, people are going to be dreaming of today, and Jesse Watters will [be] thinking ‘gosh, I should have bought Elon Musk’s stock.”
Lutnick went on, “I mean, who wouldn’t invest in Elon Musk? You gotta be kidding.”
Before he was picked by Trump to steer the Commerce Department, Lutnick had an extended profession on Wall Street main the monetary providers agency Cantor Fitzgerald.
A spokesperson for Tesla didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from .
Musk and Tesla have change into targets of animus by critics of the Trump administration due to Musk’s function main DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump lately turned the White House garden into a short lived Tesla showroom, in order that Musk might show 5 autos for the press and the president, who stated he deliberate to purchase one.
Presidents and vice presidents are exempt from federal battle of curiosity guidelines.
At the occasion, Trump revealed that he had bought a Tesla Cybertruck for his granddaughter, Kai Trump.
On Thursday, Tesla issued a recall of almost all of its Cybertrucks within the United States, to restore an exterior panel prone to detaching when the automobile is being pushed.
Demonstrators collect for a protest in opposition to Elon Musk and electrical automotive maker Tesla on February 22, 2025 in Seattle, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images
During Trump’s first time period in workplace, his then-White House senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was criticized for a Fox News look during which she urged viewers to “go buy” merchandise made by a model owned by Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter.
“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff, is what I would tell you. I’m going to. I hate shopping and I’m going to go get some myself today,” Conway informed “Fox and Friends” in February 2017.
“I’m going to give it a free commercial here,” Conway stated.
The U.S. Office of Government Ethics later warned the White House that it had “strong reason” to consider that Conway violated ethics guidelines together with her feedback.
In response, the White House ethics workplace wrote that it had regarded into the matter and “concluded that Ms. Conway acted inadvertently and is highly unlikely to do so again.”
