White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she is skipping the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner slated for April 26.
Leavitt made the announcement during a podcast appearance with Sean Spicer, who served as President Donald Trump’s White House press secretary for the first six months of 2017.
‘I will not be in attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and that’s breaking news for ‘The Sean Spicer Show,’’ Leavitt said.
Leavitt said the WHCA ‘has truly become a monetized monopoly over the White House and the coverage of the president of the United States in America.’
‘This is a group of journalists who’ve been covering the White House for decades,’ she said on the podcast published Friday. ‘They started this organization because the presidents at the time were not doing enough press conferences. I don’t think we have that problem anymore under this president, so the priorities of the media have shifted, especially with this new digital age.’
Leavitt said the WHCA has been an ‘exclusive group of journalists who cover this White House, they have not really welcomed other people, new media, independent journalists, with open arms, and so we thought it was time to expand the coverage and determine who gets to be part of that 13-person press pool, who gets to ask the president of the United States questions in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One.’
‘Since we have started this new process of determining the daily rotation, so many new voices and outlets who have never been part of this small and privileged group of journalists have been able to access those very unique and privileged spaces and cover this presidency and that’s very important,’ Leavitt added, revealing that the White House has received more than 15,000 applications for the new media seat in the press briefing room.
In late February, the White House said it would decide which journalists would be a part of the 13-member pool covering Trump in limited spaces, such as the Oval Office or Air Force One, breaking from the century-old tradition of the WHCA independently selecting which news outlets go where the president does when the full press corp cannot be accommodated.
Eugene Daniels, the president of WHCA’s board and a Politico correspondent, said the decision ‘tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,’ but the White House championed the move as modernizing the press pool to expand past solely legacy media. The Trump administration said the three traditional wire services – the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters – would no longer have a permanent spot in the pool and would instead rotate a single spot in the 13-member group.
The White House later barred the AP from the press pool for ignoring Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The ban was temporarily upheld in federal court, though U.S. District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden warned that case law did not favor the White House and scheduled another hearing for March 20.
Trump did not attend the WHCA annual dinner during his first term. Last month, the association tapped comedian Amber Ruffin, a writer for the ‘Late Show with Seth Meyers,’ to headline this year’s dinner. Ruffin told CNN’s Jake Tapper that ‘no one wants’ Trump to show up, though the president ‘should’ go to the event traditionally attended by the president and the first lady.
Former General Services Administration (GSA) head Emily Murphy, who served all of President Donald Trump’s first term, told Fox News Digital that the GSA will ‘rightsize its portfolio’ by selling or leasing unused government buildings – saving money to help the government run more efficiently.
‘I think that there’s an incredible opportunity right now for GSA to save the government substantial amounts of money by rightsizing its portfolio,’ Murphy told Fox News Digital about Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) working with GSA to identify ‘vacant or underutilized federal spaces’ as part of the Trump administration’s plan to cut wasteful spending.
‘Right now, GSA is losing money,’ Murphy said. ‘The federal buildings that they own have over $370 billion in deferred maintenance. That’s a liability that is just growing and growing and growing because the buildings haven’t been maintained. So getting rid of owned space that hasn’t been maintained and that isn’t occupied, first of all, takes that off the government’s books, gets rid of that liability. But it also creates opportunities in communities. Having a building that’s unoccupied isn’t good for a city. It isn’t good for the state. It isn’t good for anyone.’
Murphy said those empty buildings are often in ideal downtown, ‘heavy utilization areas’ that can be a real asset to building up the community and returning funds to the Treasury Department.
‘GSA has to rightsize its lease portfolio. Otherwise, it’s going to be paying rent on buildings it’s not occupying, and it doesn’t have the funding necessary to do that,’ Murphy said.
The GSA’s cost-cutting efforts have already resulted in 794 lease terminations with a total of over $500 million of lease obligations being canceled, a source familiar with the GSA’s actions told Fox News Digital.
Murphy said terminating leases and selling unused office space will benefit the government twofold. First, it can shore up money to fund government agencies in the short term. Second, it will reduce long-term financial obligations.
‘No taxpayer should want the government to be paying for space it doesn’t use,’ Murphy said. ‘It’s billions of dollars a year [that] go out in rent and real estate payments from the federal government. This is a substantial amount of money, and it’s a real chance for GSA to do a great job for the American people and reduce the long-term financial obligations of the government and, frankly, free up money for agencies in the short term as well.’
Murphy told Fox that GSA exists to ‘cut down on waste’ and during her tenure, they managed to return about $21.6 billion in savings. She embraced DOGE’s efforts to cut wasteful spending and increase government efficiency, telling Fox News Digital those issues should have bipartisan support.
‘Prioritizing efficiency and minimizing waste in our government really should be a bipartisan issue. Government contracting, government real estate doesn’t have a Republican side or a Democratic side of the coin,’ Murphy said. ‘What DOGE is doing right now is just pushing forward and trying to make sure that taxpayers can have confidence that every dollar being spent is really in their best interest.
Murphy explained that GSA was created to manage the federal government’s portfolio of properties and procurement and welcomed the renewed focus on efficiency.
‘GSA is essentially the government’s management arm. It handles the real property, the procurement, many of the shared services the government has, the vehicles in the government’s fleet. It runs a lot of the back office functions of the government. It was created about 75 years ago to specifically take on that challenge, so that agencies didn’t have to all be doing the same repetitive tasks again and again,’ Murphy said.
Stephen Ehikian was sworn in as acting administrator and deputy administrator of the GSA on Inauguration Day.
‘Under the Trump-Vance administration, I will return the GSA to its core purpose of making government work smarter and faster,’ said Ehikian. ‘Moving forward, GSA will be laser-focused on driving an efficient government and enabling our sister agencies to provide better service to taxpayers at lower costs.’
GSA has produced the most savings across federal agencies, according to the official DOGE website. A webpage titled ‘Non-core property list (Coming Soon)’ on the GSA’s website outlines the agency’s ongoing effort to save on government buildings.
‘We are identifying buildings and facilities that are not core to government operations, or non-core properties, for disposal. Selling ensures that taxpayer dollars are no longer spent on vacant or underutilized federal spaces. Disposing of these assets helps eliminate costly maintenance and allows us to reinvest in high-quality work environments that support agency missions,’ it says on GSA’s website.
The Associated Press reported that dozens of federal office and building leases will be terminated by June 20, with hundreds more expected in the coming months. AP also reported last week that GSA published a list of more than 440 federal properties the government was planning to offload. The list was then revised to include only 320 buildings before the webpage was ultimately updated to its current ‘coming soon’ language.
Musk has lamented about unused office buildings on his personal X account and DOGE’s official account.
‘Still *way* too many leases on unused buildings,’ Musk posted on Feb. 25.
‘Agreed! Today, lease cancellations on vacant/underutilized buildings are up from ~257 to ~440, with annual rent savings increasing from ~$100M to ~$171M. Still plenty of available office space for the current workforce,’ DOGE replied to Musk the following day.
‘Today, the Federal Government exceeded $100M in annual rent savings through cancellations of 250+ vacant/underutilized leases totaling 3M+ square feet. With ~7,250 current leases, there is plenty of available office space for the current workforce,’ DOGE announced in a post on Feb. 25.
‘Crazy that the government was just renting and paying for upkeep services of hundreds of empty buildings!’ Musk replied.
U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said Sunday that President Donald Trump will likely speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week.
In an appearance on CNN’s ‘State of the Union,’ Witkoff was asked when a deal to end the war in Ukraine could be anticipated.
‘The president uses the timeframe weeks, and I don’t disagree with him. I am really hopeful that we’re going to see some real progress here,’ Witkoff said. ‘Nobody expected progress this fast. This is a highly, very complicated situation, and yet we’re bridging the gap between two sides. So, lots of things that remain to be discussed, but I think the two presidents are going to have a really good and positive discussion this week.’
Trump’s special envoy met with Putin in Moscow on Thursday, days after U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia agreed to the terms of a potential ceasefire with Russia.
Witkoff said he met with Putin for between three and four hours and had a ‘positive’ and ‘solution-based’ discussion.
‘Before this visit, there was another visit, and before that visit, the two sides were miles apart,’ Witkoff told CNN host Jake Tapper. ‘The two sides are, today, a lot closer. We had some really positive results coming out of the Saudi Arabia discussion led by our national security advisor, Mike Waltz, and our secretary of state, Marco Rubio.’
‘I describe my conversation with President Putin as equally positive,’ Witkoff said. ‘The two sides have… we’ve narrowed the differences between them, and now we’re sitting at the table. I was with the president all day yesterday, I’ll be with him today, we’re sitting with him, discussing how to narrow it even further.’
It was the second time Witkoff had met with Putin in the last month. The first sit-down in mid-February resulted in the Russians releasing U.S. prisoner Marc Fogel.
Witkoff said he briefed Trump, Vice President JD Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles and Waltz from the U.S. embassy within five to 10 minutes of meeting with Putin last week.
‘President Trump has been involved in every aspect and dimension of these discussions,’ Witkoff said. ‘The president is getting updates in real time on everything that’s happening, and he’s involved in every important decision here. I expect that there will be a call with both presidents this week, and we’re also continuing to engage and have conversations with the Ukrainians. We’re advising them on everything we’re thinking about.’
‘The four regions are of critical importance here,’ Witkoff said of the terms of the deal. ‘And we’re in discussions with Ukraine, we’re in discussions with all these stakeholder European countries, so that includes France, Britain, Norway, Finland… the whole host.… And we’re in discussions with the Russians too about those regions. We’re also in discussion with all other elements that would be encompassed in a ceasefire.’
Witkoff flew to Moscow last week from Doha, Qatar, where he mediated negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a potential extension of their ceasefire agreement.
Following an election in which voters overwhelmingly rejected the fake competence of Vice President Kamala Harris and the fake lucidity of President Joe Biden, Democrats have opted to double down on fake.
Choreographed dance videos, duplicate social media posts, contrived town hall protesters and a sudden newfound aversion to zero-emission vehicles all scream insincerity. There is nothing genuine about it.
This week, a devastating split screen went viral, featuring the erstwhile faces of Senators Schumer, Warren, and Booker, who had each recorded videos of themselves trying to sound natural while reading word-for-word from the exact same script. The words, (of unknown authorship), were emblematic of the lack of authenticity plaguing the flailing party.
No one is buying what Democrats are selling; it’s all fake. The outrage over some of Trump’s most popular policies is a sham. The juxtaposition of impotent Democrats against the breakneck pace of the current Trump administration does them no favors.
Voters can see that while Trump and Vance are having fun, Democrats are having conniptions. The contrast is stark. As the president and vice president appear to enjoy their verbal jousting with media and protesters, the progressive left seem to be losing their minds, flailing with fake tears of exasperation.
Democrats can’t fake cool.
The reality is, their leaders come across childish, insincere, and desperate, not to mention old, tired, grumpy, and totally out of touch. Who can relate to the likes of Schumer, Sanders, Durbin, and Warren?
Meanwhile, their protestors have lost the plot, projecting an embrace of violence, lawlessness, and government corruption. The party offers no home for traditional liberal Democrats, working-class people, privacy advocates, anti-war leftists, or Israel-supporting Jews.
Their carefully curated and choreographed messaging bears no resemblance to the urgent demands of a year ago. Supposedly, Democrats were all about electric vehicles. Not anymore.
Remember how Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was administering billions of dollars to build a national network of electric charging stations? (Americans got nothing for this boondoggle.) Democrats even advocated legislation to eliminate gas-powered vehicles in favor of electric vehicles. AOC personally bought a Tesla.
Now, the message has reversed. Alas, their fealty to electric cars was also fake. Teslas are now bad; protesting and destroying them is good. Chaos is fine when they do it.
Democratic women at the Joint Session of Congress wore pink, in theory, to support women, but they can’t define what a woman is, nor could they possibly support excluding men from participating in women’s sports. Their fake support of women falls apart when they actually have to stand up for women.
When President Trump tried to speak of the golden age of America that night, the Democrats couldn’t muster the strength to applaud. They failed to stand for a young cancer fighter, a man fulfilling his dream of attending West Point, a female victim of deep fake bullying pushing back, or a 95-year-old mother whose son was back from being held in Russia. Who are the Democrats really fighting for with their ‘resistance’ movement?
In 2024, they defended censorship to deal with ‘misinformation’ on social media – now they care deeply about the free speech of Hamas supporters, a designated terrorist organization, on US soil. Videos circulate of Democrats who previously criticized waste, fraud, and abuse now fighting to keep the gravy train running. We can all see that they’ve done a 180 from opposing to defending waste. The duplicity is lost on no one.
Coming off of a presidential campaign in which they all pretended to love Kamala Harris, who couldn’t string together an authentic sentence, these latest antics ooze insincerity.
Contrast that with a President Trump who cheerfully pops in on White House tours, has candid, almost daily exchanges with the press, works the McDonald’s drive-through window, and shares irreverent memes on social media. It’s not even a fair fight. Donald Trump is unapologetically himself.
Voters are finished with the Democrats’ choreographed and curated leadership model. Their consultants, some of whom are their family members, are getting rich, but their efforts to rebuild and refresh their party are going backwards.
The party’s whole premise was based on division and class warfare. It was not about the very principles that make our country great.
Far be it from me to give the Democrats advice. As long as they keep doing what they’re doing, the republic is likely safe from their fake leadership.
The acting administrator of DOGE detailed that Elon Musk is not an employee of the United States DOGE Service and does not report to the acting DOGE chief, a court filing shedding additional light on the internal workings of the office shows.
‘Elon Musk does not work at USDS. I do not report to him, and he does not report to me. To my knowledge, he is a Senior Advisor to the White House,’ Amy Gleason, the acting administrator of DOGE, wrote in a declaration included in a court filing on Friday.
Musk has been the public face of DOGE for months, as President Donald Trump celebrates the billions of dollars in savings his administration has secured through DOGE’s work to gut the federal government of overspending, mismanagement and fraud. Musk, however, ‘has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself’ and is working as a senior advisor to the president, a White House official said in a separate court filing in February.
The White House identified Gleason as the official acting chief of DOGE last month. Gleason, a little-known government employee who also worked in the first Trump administration, provided a declaration in a court filing involving a lawsuit against DOGE last week that further explains how the government office operates.
‘In my role at USDS, I oversee all of USDS’s employees and detailees to USDS from other agencies,’ Gleason wrote in her declaration. ‘I report to the White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles.’
Gleason previously worked for the United States Digital Service, which was founded in 2014 by former President Barack Obama as a technology office within the Executive Office of the President. Trump signed an executive order in January that renamed the office to the United States DOGE Service, establishing DOGE.
In addition to overseeing USDS, Gleason also oversees the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization – an office established by Trump in January that sits under the USDS umbrella and will expire on July 4, 2026.
Gleason explained in her declaration that under Trump’s executive order establishing DOGE, agency chiefs were charged with creating their own DOGE teams to find and eliminate overspending. Gleason said the respective agency DOGE teams are comprised of agency employees or detailees who do not report to her.
‘Every member of an agency’s DOGE Team is an employee of the agency or a detailee to the agency. The DOGE Team members – whether employees of the agency or detailed to the agency – thus report to the agency heads or their designees, not to me or anyone else at USDS,’ she wrote.
‘In some instances, members of agency DOGE Teams are detailees from USDS to the agency. Where USDS detailees are assigned to an agency DOGE Team and acting in their capacity as a detailee to the DOGE Team, they are supervised by personnel of the agency to which they are detailed,’ she added.
Gleason has been described by former colleagues as ‘world-class talent’ who frequently works long hours and is apolitical.
DOGE has saved an estimated $115 billion in government spending in the form of workforce reductions, contract cancellations, regulatory savings and other initiatives, according to its website. Trump has touted DOGE’s work repeatedly in public remarks, including rattling off a list of government grants that were axed since his inauguration during his first address to a joint session of Congress earlier this month.
‘Forty-five million dollars for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma,’ Trump said as he provided examples of federal waste on March 4 after thanking Musk and DOGE for its work. ‘Forty million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is. Eight million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of. Sixty million dollars for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America. Sixty million. Eight million for making mice transgender.’
Democrats and federal employees have railed against DOGE since the investigations and mass terminations at various agencies got underway following Trump’s inauguration, including staging protests outside federal buildings in Washington, D.C., and specifically protesting Musk for his involvement with DOGE.
U.S. warships have shot down roughly a dozen Houthi drones since President Donald Trump launched airstrikes against the terrorist organization on Saturday, Fox News has learned.
A senior defense official told Fox News of the developments on Sunday. The drones were aimed at the U.S. Navy’s Truman Carrier Strike Group, and were shot down ‘well before’ they posed a serious threat, the official added.
The latest military action came after nearly a year and a half of attacks from Houthis, both on commercial merchant vessels and U.S. military ships. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump wrote that he had ‘ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.’
‘It has been over a year since a U.S.-flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden,’ Trump continued. ‘The last American Warship to go through the Red Sea, four months ago, was attacked by the Houthis over a dozen times.’
Trump wrote that the ‘relentless assaults have cost the U.S. and World Economy many BILLIONS of Dollars while, at the same time, putting innocent lives at risk.’
‘To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!’ his post concluded.
Trump re-designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) in January. His first administration had named the Houthis as an FTO, but the Biden administration later reversed the move.
On Sunday, the White House released photos of Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz monitoring the strikes.
‘President Trump is taking action against the Houthis to defend US shipping assets and deter terrorist threats,’ the White House wrote on X. ‘For too long American economic & national threats have been under assault by the Houthis. Not under this presidency.’
Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump trolled former President Joe Biden in a social media post on Sunday, highlighting the controversy surrounding his alleged ‘autopen signatures’ during his presidency.
On Truth Social, Trump posted three images side-by-side – his official portrait from his first term, a picture of Biden’s autopen and then finally his official portrait for his second term.
Trump then pinned the post.
‘The person who was the real President during the Biden years was the person who controlled the Autopen!’ Trump wrote in another post on his account.
Trump spoke about the autopen signature issue while speaking from the Oval Office on Friday about NATO spending.
‘The man was grossly incompetent. All you have to do is take a look, he signs by autopen. Who was signing all this stuff by autopen? Who would think to sign important documents by autopen?’ Trump asked reporters.
‘These are major documents you’re signing, you’re proud to sign, yet you have your signature on something and in 300 years, they say ‘oh look.’ Can you imagine everything was signing by autopen? Almost everything. Nobody has ever heard of such a thing. It should have never happened,’ Trump continued.
The post sparked a firestorm on social media with many backing Trump as Democrats have faced backlash over accusations that they dismissed Biden’s health concerns and engaged in a cover-up throughout the end of his term.
‘President Trump JUST POSTED the AUTOPEN that ran the White House from 2021-2025 next to his portraits,’ one X user commented.
‘Biden was an illegitimate president. Who controlled the auto pen?’ another X used commented.
Vice President JD Vance also shared the image on X without any comment.
‘Corrupt establishment was running the country from 2021-2025. Who controlled the auto pen for Biden?’ Missouri Lieutenant Governor David Wasinger commented, sharing Vance’s post.
Elon Musk also chimed in on the photo, posting on X, with two emojis – a bullseye and laughing face.
Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s team about Trump’s post featuring the autopen image, but did not receive a response.
In a new report published by an arm of the Heritage Foundation, it was revealed that the majority of official documents signed by Biden allegedly used the same autopen signature, reinvigorating concerns over the former president’s mental acuity and if he ‘actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents.’
‘WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY,’ the Oversight Project, which is an initiative within the conservative Heritage Foundation that investigates the government to bolster transparency, posted to X on Thursday.
‘We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency. All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year. Here is the autopen signature,’ the group claimed on X, accompanied by photo examples.
The Oversight Project posted three examples showing Biden’s signature, including two executive orders and the president’s announcement he was bowing out of the 2024 presidential race. The signature on the two executive orders, one of which was signed in 2022 and the other in 2024, showed the same signature that included what appeared to be a line, followed by ‘R. Biden Jr.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s office for comment on the Oversight Project’s findings on the autopen investigation, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Fox News Digital also examined the signatures on President Donald Trump’s executive orders, which are often signed in public or in front of the media, during his first administration and second administration and found the signatures were also the same.
The Oversight Project continued in its findings that investigators should determine ‘who controlled the autopen’ during the Biden administration.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to stepheny.price@fox.com
Flagging global sales and Elon Musk’s increasingly outspoken political activities are combining to rock the value of Tesla.
Shares in the once-trillion-dollar company saw their worst day in five years this week. Year to date, Tesla’s stock has plunged 36% — though it is still up by some 54% over the past 12 months.
For Musk, Tesla’s shares remain his primary source of paper wealth, though he has also turned his stake in SpaceX into a personal lending tool. But it was proceeds from selling Tesla shares that helped Musk complete his acquisition of Twitter, now known as X.
Musk’s wealth also allowed him to help vault Donald Trump into a second presidential term. Even as Musk’s net worth has diminished as a result of Tesla’s recent share-price declines, data suggests he is in no danger of losing his title as the world’s wealthiest person.
Musk has said on X that he is not concerned about Tesla’s recent drop in value. Still, evidence suggests the company is entering a period of transition.
A spokesperson for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
Musk’s wealth has propelled him to a global presence that lacks precedent — and has polarized world opinion about the tech entrepreneur in the process. Any weakening of his financial position, therefore, could undercut his influence in the political and tech spaces where he now commands outsize attention.According to Bank of America, Tesla’s European sales plummeted by about 50% in January compared with the same month a year prior.
Some say this is attributable to a growing distaste for Musk, who has begun dabbling in the continent’s politics in the wake of his successful support of Trump’s candidacy last year.
Others note Tesla’s European market is facing increased competition from the Chinese electric-vehicle maker BYD, which has telegraphed ambitious plans for expansion on the continent.
A more decisive blow to Tesla’s near-term fortunes may be emanating from China itself. There, Tesla’s shipments plunged 49% in February from a year earlier, to just 30,688 vehicles, according to official data cited by Bloomberg News. That’s the lowest monthly figure registered since July 2022 — amid the throes of Covid-19 — when it shipped just 28,217 EVs, Bloomberg said.
Donald Trump accompanied by Elon Musk speaks Tuesday next to a Tesla Model S on the South Lawn of the White House.Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
Tesla is now facing intense competition from other Chinese EV makers, including BYD.
Yet even there, a Chinese official also warned about the impact of Musk’s high-profile politicking.
“As a successful businessman, one should be embracing 100% of the market: Treat everyone nicely, and everyone will be nice in return,” the secretary of China’s Passenger Car Association, said in a briefing Monday, Bloomberg reported. “But if you look at it in terms of voting, then half of voters will be friendly to you and half of them won’t be.”
“This is the unavoidable risk that’s come after he got his personal glory,” the secretary, Cui Dongshu, said Monday, referring to Musk.
On Friday, Reuters reported Tesla was planning to sell a Model Y costing at least 20% less to produce to defend its China share.
And in the U.S., Tesla’s January sales were down about 11%, according to data from the S&P Global analytics group — an outlier at a time when EV sales for all other brands are trending higher in America.
Though he has long worn multiple proverbial hats, Musk’s role in the White House as nominal head of the Department of Government Efficiency may be his most consequential. And having influence with the Trump administration could be critical to Tesla’s fortunes. This week, Trump promised he would purchase a Tesla in a showy presentation on the White House lawn, seemingly further cementing the Trump-Musk alliance.
On X — the social media platform he owns — Musk’s frenetic posting is increasingly focused on politics and America’s culture wars, with an occasional nod to SpaceX launches.
His apparently undiminished role in the Trump administration — he was seen leaving the White House last weekend alongside Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — has sparked boycotts in Europe, as well as protests and even acts of vandalism against auto owners in the U.S.
“When people’s cars are in jeopardy of being keyed or set on fire out there, even people who support Musk or are indifferent to Musk might think twice about buying a Tesla,” Ben Kallo, an analyst at Baird, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday.
In a note to clients this week downgrading its estimate of deliveries, analysts with JPMorgan said the damage to Tesla’s brand has been serious.
“We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly,” they wrote.
Tesla itself is warning about the fallout from retaliatory measures taken by countries targeted by Trump’s tariffs, saying in a letter to the U.S. trade representative this week that the company may be “exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries respond to US trade actions.”
Already, the Canadian province of British Columbia has announced it was ending subsidies for Tesla’s products.
For all the oxygen Musk has taken up with his political activities, concerns about Tesla products themselves are equally keeping investors and analysts up at night.
Musk has “neglect[ed] the rest of Tesla’s automotive business as he thought that by the end of every year for the last 6 years, Tesla would be able to flip a switch and make all its vehicles self-driving — automatically increasing their value and making them infinitely more competitive than other vehicles,” Fred Lambert, who covers the company for the Electrek electric vehicle blog, wrote in a recent post.
Meanwhile, Musk decided to kill Tesla’s cheaper, $25,000 model while going all-in on the Cybertruck, whose sales have yet to take off, Lambert said.
“Tesla’s core business remains selling cars and batteries,” he wrote. “There’s no doubt that the business of selling cars is not going well for Tesla right now, and under Musk, there’s no clear path to improvement.”
By contrast, many analysts continue to take a much longer view of Tesla’s outlook. In his most recent note to clients about the company, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, one of the most closely watched observers of Tesla, summarized the long-term outlook that he says continues to justify the company’s eye-watering valuation.
“Tesla’s softer auto deliveries are emblematic of a company in the transition from an automotive ‘pure play’ to a highly diversified play on AI and robotics,” he wrote in a note March 2.
While that was before the most recent sell-off intensified, Jonas said he was already discounting market gyrations.
“While the journey may be volatile and non-linear, we believe 2025 will be a year where investors will continue to appreciate and value these existing and nascent industries of embodied AI where we believe Tesla has established a material competitive advantage,” he wrote.
The Russian captain of the Solong cargo ship that crashed into a US-flagged tanker earlier this week in the North Sea appeared in an English court on Saturday on charges of gross negligence manslaughter.
The Portuguese-flagged Solong hit the Stena Immaculate on Monday while it was at anchor off England’s northeast coast and carrying huge amounts of jet fuel for the US military, setting fire to both vessels and prompting emergency rescue efforts by the British coastguard.
The Solong’s master, Vladimir Motin, a 59-year-old from St. Petersburg, appeared at Hull Magistrate’s Court on Saturday after being charged over the death of Mark Angelo Pernia, a 38-year-old Filipino crew member who could not be located after the crash and is presumed dead.
In a 35-minute hearing, the court heard how the Solong had careered into the Stena Immaculate, an incident that maritime experts have called a “mystery.”
Prosecutor Amelia Katz said Stena Immaculate had been anchored for more than 15 hours before the Solong, travelling at a speed of over 15 knots, crashed into it, Reuters reported.
“For a period of over 40 minutes before the collision, the Solong was on a direct route for impact with the Stena Immaculate, which was anchored and stationary,” Katz said.
“There were no communication attempts from the Solong to warn of the impending collision and the Solong did not adjust its course or speed at any point,” she added.
The full 23-person crew of the Stena Immaculate was rescued, while only 13 of the 14 people on board the Solong were brought to safety. Britain’s maritime minister Mike Kane said that a search and rescue operation for the missing crew member, later identified as Pernia, had been called off late Monday.
The Stena Immaculate, which Kane said was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel when it crashed, is part of a fleet of 10 tankers involved in a US government program to supply its military with fuel.
US logistics firm Crowley, which manages the tanker, said the vessel is part of the US Defense Department’s “Tanker Security Program” which “ensures a commercial fleet can readily transport liquid fuel supplies in times of need.”
Britain’s coastguard said Wednesday that there was no fire visible on the Stena Immaculate, but by Friday there were still “small periodic pockets on fire” on the Solong.
Although the crash initially caused fears of huge damage to the environment, the coastguard said Friday that “there continues to be no cause for concern from pollution” from either ship.
Greenpeace said that an environmental disaster seems to have been “narrowly averted.”
“When a container ship the length of a football pitch rams into a tanker carrying thousands of tonnes of jet fuel at 16 knots close to sensitive nature sites, the potential for serious harm is huge,” Dr. Paul Johnston from the Greenpeace Research Laboratories said Wednesday.
“The priority should now be to ensure as far as possible that both ships remain afloat, that no further jet fuel leaks from the tanker and that the cargo of the container ship is fully characterised and secured,” he added.
Britain’s coastguard said the Stena Immaculate remains at anchor while the Solong was being held in a safe position offshore by a tugboat.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to a US-proposed ceasefire in Ukraine is “not good enough,” Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, after hosting a virtual summit aimed at drumming up support for Kyiv and piling pressure on Russia.
After hosting a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” – a group of Western nations that have pledged to help defend Ukraine against Russia – Starmer said leaders had agreed that “the ‘yes but’ from Russia is not good enough” and that Russia would have to come to the negotiating table sooner or later.
“We agreed collective pressure will be put on Russia from all of us who were in the meeting this morning,” he added.
Saturday’s meeting involved some 25 countries, including European nations, the EU Commission, NATO, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
After Kyiv this week accepted the terms of a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine – endorsed by US President Donald Trump – Moscow’s response was ambiguous, with Putin saying that “we agree with the proposal” but also that the deal “wasn’t complete.”
The meeting also comes at a critical time in the three-year war, with Russia advancing in its Kursk border region where it is attempting to reverse Ukraine’s gains.
While he offered few new details, Starmer announced that the militaries of Ukraine’s allies will meet in the United Kingdom on Thursday, to “put strong and robust plans in place” to keep the peace in the event a ceasefire is struck in Ukraine.
“We will now move into an operational phase,” Starmer said. “Our militaries will meet on Thursday this week here in the United Kingdom to put strong and robust plans in place to swing behind a peace deal and guarantee Ukraine’s future security.”
During Saturday’s talks, Starmer said that Ukraine’s allies agreed to “keep the military aid flowing to Ukraine, and keep tightening restrictions on Russia’s economy, to weaken Putin’s war machine and bring him to the table.”
Starmer said that Putin was delaying the US-backed ceasefire proposal that Ukraine agreed to this week, and that Ukraine “is the party of peace.”
US President Donald Trump “has offered Putin the way forward to a lasting peace – now we must make this a reality,” Starmer said.
Responding to a question from a journalist about US support, Starmer stressed that the “position on the US hasn’t changed,” and that achieving peace in Ukraine “needs to be done in conjunction with the United States.”
It comes after Starmer said in opening remarks to the “coalition of the willing” that “if Putin is serious about peace, it’s very simple: He has to stop his barbaric attacks on Ukraine and agree to a ceasefire.” He continued, “The world is watching. My feeling is that sooner or later he’s going to have to come to the table and engage in serious discussion.”
The “coalition of the willing,” a group of who have pledged to help defend Ukraine from Russian aggression in the face of dwindling and uncertain support from Washington, last met in London two weeks ago before reconvening Saturday for the virtual meeting.
Although Europe has shown considerable unity amid the blows the Trump administration has dealt to the transatlantic alliance, significant divisions remain over whether individual European countries are willing to deploy troops to Ukraine to keep the peace.
A statement from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said that Meloni, who joined Saturday’s virtual summit, does not envisage Italy’s participation in a possible military presence in Ukraine.
Trump said Friday that he got “pretty good news” on a potential ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, without elaborating, and that his administration had “very good calls” with both countries earlier in the day.
In a separate post on Truth Social, Trump said “there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end.”
Putin met with US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday in Moscow – a visit that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said gave “reason to be cautiously optimistic.”
With Kyiv losing its grip on the western Russian region of Kursk, its sole territorial bargaining chip, many believe that Putin may be delaying talks on the ceasefire proposal until the region is firmly back under Russian control.
Russian forces have retaken two more settlements in Kursk – Zaoleshenka and Rubanshchina – its defense ministry claimed on Saturday. It comes days after Russia recaptured the key town of Sudzha, the largest town Ukraine had occupied in the region.
Zelensky said Saturday his troops were holding back Russian and North Korean forces in Kursk and denied Russian claims that Ukraine’s army was surrounded.
Meanwhile the aerial assaults continued, with hundred of drones crossing the border.
Russia fired 178 drones and two ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, killing at least two people and injuring 44, according to Ukrainian officials. The two were killed in Kherson region, the head of its military administration said, after Russia targeted critical infrastructure and residential buildings, damaging seven high-rise buildings and 27 houses.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses had shot down 126 Ukrainian drones overnight, without saying how many drones bypassed its defenses.
