Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, US News, News, Elon Musk, Technology
Donald Trump made quite the show of buying a Tesla off multi-billionaire Elon Musk earlier this week.
Yesterday (11 March), the 78-year-old Republican president, whose campaign was bankrolled by Musk, urged his fans to support Tesla - the car company Musk is the CEO of.
However, amidst his flurry of posts about his new purchase, he admitted that he was 'not allowed' to drive the motor - something which seriously baffled people online.
Trump wrote on his own social media platform, Truth Social: "To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is 'putting it on the line' in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!
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"But 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.
"They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American."
Trump concluded the plea: "Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???"
He also later shared a video of himself speaking to reporters at the White House alongside Musk explaining why he was going to buy the Tesla: "Number one, it's a great product - as good as it gets - and number two, because Elon has devoted his energy and his life to doing this and I think he has been treated very unfairly…"
After a lengthy spiel about patriotism, Trump concluded by revealing: "I just wanted to make a statement. I'm going to buy one. Now, here's the bad news..."
He then confessed the reason he wouldn't actually be driving the motor - despite being the one who bought it.
"I'm not allowed to drive because, I haven't driven a car in a long time, and I love to drive cars, but I'm going to have it at the White House and I'm going to let my staff use it," Trump explained.
"I'm going to let people at the place use it, and they all are all excited about that. I'm not allowed to use it. Can you believe it?"
Notably, current and former American presidents and vice presidents are prohibited from driving on public roads - a restriction put in place for security reasons and is enforced by the US Secret Service, the government agency responsible for protecting the nations' top officials.
Such a decision reportedly came about following the assassination of former President John F Kennedy, who was shot dead while driving an open car in Dallas, Texas, back in 1963.
