Man, sometimes life feels like a weird mix of chaos and predictability, and Elon Musk and tariffs? Yeah, that’s like adding extra seasoning to the party mix, right? Picture this: It’s March 11, 2025, and there’s Trump, strolling around the White House grounds like he owns the place (well, he kinda does), and standing next to him is Elon Musk, holding his strangely named kid X Æ A-12. They’re probably discussing something profound, or maybe musk is explaining how one names a child like that. Reuters’ Kevin snapped that moment for us.
So, Musk has got this love-hate relationship with tariffs. Can’t stand them being high or all over the place like a mood swing, but knows it’s the prez who calls the shots. And yet, his company, Tesla, is kind of cruising along fine, or at least that’s the vibe he’s throwing out there. See, they’ve got these “localized supply chains” all over—the US, China, and Europe, like a fast food chain but, you know, with cars.
Now let’s get real, Tesla’s numbers are looking kinda rough. I mean, a 20% drop in car sales, and income dived by 71%. Ouch. And Musk ain’t gonna give us any pinky promises for 2025, not until midway through the year at the earliest. Talk about keeping us all on edge, huh?
Despite chillin’ close with Trump, Musk ain’t vibing with the White House on these tariffs. Heck, he even called Peter Navarro (Trump’s trade guy) some pretty spicy names—like “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.” Guess you can still be buddies while throwing shade here and there. Balance, I guess?
During some gab-fest, Musk laid down the law: if a country’s playing dirty with tariffs or just too much gov love for one industry, you gotta push back. But, here’s the kicker, investors are having a meltdown ‘cause a juicy tariff rumor from Trump had stock prices rolling downhill faster than a kid on a sugar rush. Ha, and just when they couldn’t drop more after a brutal first quarter.
Ahh the irony, right? Tesla’s whipping up rides in the good ol’ USA, so they dodge Trump’s 25% car import bouncer. But hey, they don’t make all their toys here. They get bits from China, Mexico, and buddies—glass, chips, batteries, you name it. So, those tariffs hit like unexpected rain on a sunny day picnic.
Musk reckons he’s got the president’s ear—offers him “advice,” as he calls it. But end of the day, it’s all Trump’s ball game. Musk goes on record, time and again, as Team Lower Tariffs. Wanna talk about “predictable tariff structures”? Musk’ll preach, “free trade and lower tariffs” with passion only second to talks of colonizing Mars.
And those batteries. Oh, the batteries! Direct hit from tariffs, Musk laments. They source battery cells from China, but are in the pipeline phase of local production—fingers crossed for that.
Oh and hey, Tesla built a Texas refinery but yeah, they ain’t exactly farming rubber or mining iron at home just yet. Still, that’s what being super “vertically integrated” means when you’re Tesla—do a lot yourself but also need a smidge of help.
By the way, someone mentioned tariffs on batteries from China could end up pretty expensive. Now the question is, how’d they not see that coming from a mile away? Seems like an obvious plot twist waiting to happen.
And there it is, a swirling mess of thoughts on musk, tariffs, and a touch of Trump, straight from this whirlwind brain we’re all strapped to.
