Andrew Harnik, a Getty Images photographer, managed to capture a photo of President Donald Trump's notes while he praised Tesla in front of the White House on Tuesday, revealing that they consisted of a literal sales pitch, complete with a pricing breakdown of Tesla vehicles.
On Monday, Trump announced his intention to buy a Tesla to show support for his ally, billionaire Elon Musk, who serves as the company’s CEO. Then he affirmed this the following day, lining up five Teslas in place of the presidential motorcade on the South Lawn.
When asked by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy if he would "buy or lease," Trump, standing next to Musk, defended Musk's federal spending cuts and said:
"I'm gonna buy because #1, it's a great product, as good as it gets. And #2, because this man has devoted his energy and his life to doing this and he's been treated unfairly by a very small group of people. And I just want people to know that you can't be penalized for being a patriot, and he's a great patriot, and he's also done an incredible job with Tesla."
"Nobody has a car company started in the last 30 years that's successful, I don't think so. And not only successful but super successful. And because he's been able to find billions and billions and billions of dollars of fraud and waste. Our country's going to be very strong very soon because of a lot of things he's done and a lot of the things I'm doing."
"For what he's doing, he shouldn't be penalized. When I watched the other day, I said I can't believe it. It should be the opposite. People should be going wild and they love the product but because they're finding all sorts of terrible things against our country and they want to penalize him in an economic sense."
It sure as hell sounded like a sales pitch—as you can see in the video below.
He later hopped into a red Model S, which retails for about $80,000. He called it "beautiful." He also said he would gift his 17-year-old granddaughter, Kai, a Cybertruck, which has a starting price of nearly $80,000.
And Harnik captured perhaps the most striking image from that afternoon—a note attached to Trump's speech mentioning that "Teslas can be purchased as low as $299/month or $35K" and includes a list of Tesla models that have full "self-driving" capabilities.
You can see it below.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Trump faced immediate harsh criticism.
Trump previously claimed that “radical left lunatics” are “illegally and collusively” boycotting Tesla, which he described as one of the best automakers in the world. According to Trump, this boycott is a direct attack on Musk and his principles.
However, it is not illegal for consumers to boycott companies. The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that the First Amendment protects Americans' rights to protest private businesses.
These remarks followed a series of vandal attacks against Tesla vehicles. Recently, an Oregon man was charged with illegally possessing an unregistered destructive device after federal prosecutors alleged he carried out two separate attacks on a "local car dealership" in Salem this year.
This arrest follows a series of suspected arson incidents targeting Tesla facilities, including a charging station near Boston that was set on fire just days earlier. Similar attacks have also been reported in Colorado and Germany in recent days.
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