- Donald Trump’s red Tesla was not seen on the White House grounds on Tuesday.
- Trump bought a red Tesla Model S in March.
- Trump and Elon Musk have been going through a very public spat.
Donald Trump may be erasing one very public sign of Elon Musk’s White House tenure.
Trump’s red Tesla Model S was not in its usual spot on the White House grounds on Tuesday, ABC News’s Jonathan Karl wrote on X.
Monday afternoon, hours before the car’s apparent absence was noticed, Trump said that he might move the vehicle amid his very public spat with Musk, the man who once called himself Trump’s “First Buddy.”
“I may move the Tesla around a little bit, but I don’t think we’ll be doing that with Starlink,” he told reporters. “It’s a good service.”
Trump didn’t say where he might move it. “I have a lot of locations,” he said. “I had so many locations that I don’t know what to do with them all.”
The president could have had the car moved to one of his properties, including his private golf club near the nation’s capital.
Trump and his allies have criticized Musk after the world’s richest man refused to back down from his call to kill “The One Big Beautiful Bill,” the centerpiece of the president’s domestic agenda. Musk retorted by alleging that Trump is blocking the release of the so-called “Epstein Files” because of his ties to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump bought the Tesla in March at a White House event aimed at bucking up Musk’s flagship company as backlash mounted to the billionaire’s work with the White House’s DOGE office.
At the time, a handful of top administration officials made public moves to boost Tesla as its share prices tanked amid protests at dealerships and a rise in trade-ins of its popular EVs.
Following last week’s high-profile spat, a White House official said Trump was considering selling the car.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Related stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
