If you like to put the pedal to the metal, you might want to avoid running for President of the United States, as a bizarre stipulation means you probably won’t be able to make the most of your classic car collection.

We’re used to seeing President Donald Trump being motored around in his armored vehicle known as ‘The Beast’. Stocked with the POTUS’ blood type, door handles that can shock attackers, and bulletproof windows, the $1.5 million vehicle can withstand chemical attacks and is Trump’s regular runaround.

Still, Trump has boasted an impressive car collection over the years, including a 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, 2015 Rolls-Royce Phantom Saloon, and even an OG Tesla Roadster.

With the recent drama surrounding Tesla, Trump has gotten firmly behind best buddy Elon Musk and bought a brand-new EV.

The POTUS won’t be able to take his new Tesla for a spin (Andrew Harnik / Staff / Getty)

Turning the White House into his own personal Tesla showroom, the POTUS posed in front of a fleet of Teslas and picked out a shiny red Model S that retails at around $80,000.

The President joked about “giving the Secret Service a heart attack” as he sat in the driver’s seat and said about how the vehicle can reach 95 kilometers per hour in just few seconds.

Saying, “That’s beautiful, that one,” Trump continued: “I’ll give him a check. I do it the old fashioned way …and I don’t want a discount.”

Speaking to the crowd, Trump concluded: “Here’s the bad news. I’m not allowed to drive the car

“I haven’t driven a car in a long time and I like to drive cars. But I’m going to have [the Tesla] in the White House and I’m going to let my staff use it. I’m going to let the people in the country use it and everyone is excited about it. I’m not allowed to use it. Can you believe it?”

It’s not a case of Trump not wanting to drive the Model S – he’s not allowed.

Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the Secret Service enacted a rule that no serving or former President can drive on the roads. Lyndon Johnson was the last President to drive on public roads, and although the rule isn’t law, it’s adhered to by all parties.

Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton all steer clear of getting behind the wheel, while Hillary Clinton says she hasn’t driven since 1996.

The fact that former Presidents aren’t allowed to drive is a cause of contention for them, with Clinton telling Ellen DeGeneres that not being able to drive is the thing he misses the most. Speaking in 2012, he joked: “I mean, if I wanted to give up Secret Service protection for life, I could do it.”

The same year, President Obama was seen driving a Chevy Volt around the White House, with Secret Service agents closing the gates so he wasn’t driving in public. When serving as Vice President, Joe Biden lodged a complaint when speaking at the United Auto Workers conference in 2014, grumbling: “There are a lot of reasons to run for president, but there’s one overwhelming reason not to run for president. I like to get that [Corvette] Z06 from zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds.”

Biden used his appearance on Jay Leno’s Garage to give his ’67 Corvette a rare drive around a Secret Service training area in Maryland.

The Secret Service are tasked with keeping the President and former Presidents safe because they’re trained in “evasive and defensive driving maneuvers,” and while we’re not questioning the driving skills of the POTUS, it looks like he’ll have to admire his new Tesla from afar.

Even though he might be the richest man in the world, we question how long Elon Musk will be able to keep that title if things continue the way they are. Following a devastating one-day loss of $29 billion, Musk’s current net worth still sits at an impressive $324.3 billion – making him well over $100 billion richer than Jeff Bezos.

As well as overtaking Bezos to become the richest person in the world in January 2021, Musk has continued to break milestones as the first person in the world to be worth over $300 billion and then $400 billion.

Still, he’s also entered the Guinness World Records as the first person to lose $200 billion thanks to declining Tesla stock values in December 2022. While there are fears that history could be about to repeat itself thanks to Tesla‘s recent stock stumbles, Musk is keen to downplay this bump in the road and is looking ahead at a brighter future.

President Donald Trump is doing his best to support his so-called ‘First Buddy’, and by turning the White House into its very own Tesla showroom, there’s been a much-needed boost to the company’s fortunes.

Musk has vowed to ramp up Tesla production in the USA (Andrew Harnik / Staff / Getty)

Added to this, Musk has vowed to increase Tesla production in the USA. Posting on X, the divisive tech mogul wrote: “In support of the policies of President Donald Trump and to demonstrate our confidence in the future of the United States, Tesla commits to doubling vehicle production in the US within 2 years!”

This comes after the POTUS vowed to hand over a check for a shiny red Tesla Model S – even though he won’t be able to drive it.

Musk’s announcement comes after President Trump promised to push for more domestic manufacturing. In a White House post saying that things are on the up, the Trump administration claims it has gained 10,000 manufacturing jobs during Trump’s first full month in office. The release says this is in contrast to the Biden administration losing 9,000 manufacturing jobs per month during its final year.

The automobile industry is said to have especially flourished as it gained 8,900 new jobs in February 2025. If Musk does deliver on his Tesla uptick, the brand could be key in adding more jobs.

Skeptics remain unconvinced, and pointing out how Tesla’s Fremont Factory is supposedly being worked at capacity, Musk might have to look to the Gigafactory Texas complex.

Tesla’s Q4 update letter confirms the Freemont Factory can produce 650,000 vehicles a year, and while the Gigafactory is currently at 375,000, it would have to increase its output to reach the mythical 2 million.

The numbers might sound impressive, but remember how Musk previously hyped Tesla’s ability to reach Cybercab volume production in 2026. He unveiled plans to produce at least 2 million Cybercabs a year during a Q3 2024 earnings call, so to reach these supposedly ‘new’ targets, he simply has to continue as planned.

Some think the numbers don’t add up, but with a new Tesla Trump banging his drum for the EV brand, this could be an important turning point for Tesla…or mark the start of its continued downfall.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has begun an appeal process to restore the $56,000,000,000 pay package from the electric car company that he claims was denied in a ‘legal error’.

Despite being undeniably the richest man in the world, Elon Musk continues his crusade for more money by pushing for an ‘unfathomable’ pay package from Tesla that he claims he is rightfully owed.

Awarded all the way back in 2018, this particular pay package resulted in major growth for the electric car manufacturer, as per Reuters, but was ordered to be rescinded by Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick through Delaware law proceedings.

Musk has filed an appeal after his claim to an ‘unfathomable’ Tesla pay package was denied (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Chancellor McCormick indicated that the staggering pay package was “unfathomable” and unfair to shareholders, as directors were ‘beholden’ to Musk as CEO, alongside accusations that Tesla withheld key information from investors before they successfully voted to approve the pay package.

Musk has now launched his own appeal to McCormick’s decision, claiming instead that multiple legal errors were made in the application of the ‘entire fairness’ legal standard.

His legal representatives argue that Chancellor McCormick incorrectly determined that the Tesla directors that approved the pay package were conflicted in their business efforts, and that her assessment of the company’s failure to disclose information was a fault.

What remains critical about this particular pay package is it’s relevance to the current stock price of Tesla, even with a rapidly falling valuation over the past few weeks despite a push of support from President Trump.

The pay package, if successfully awarded, allows Musk to purchase roughly 303 million stock options in the company at around $23 each, which is essentially 10% of the most recent $230.58 closing price on Tuesday (March 11) night, and pales in comparison to the highs of around $492.77 at the end of last year.

Having access to this pay package would significantly increase Musk’s net worth and control over Tesla, despite stock value drops (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Musk’s purchase price if awarded these stocks would be around $6,969,000,000 – which is around just 2.2% of his total current net worth – but if he sold it at that $230.58 closing price he’d earn himself $69,865,740,000, which would boost his net worth by 20%.

Conversely, Musk will likely feel as if he’s lost significant value due to the fact that Tesla is significantly lower than it’s all-time high on the stock market, and if he had indeed held this pay packet at the $492.77 evaluation then his net worth would have almost doubled, increasing by $149,309,310,000.

This is quite a different approach compared to key rival Sam Altman, who currently holds no stock options for OpenAI and only receives a $76,000 yearly wage from the company, and in addition Musk has threatened to move his efforts elsewhere and procure development outside of Tesla if he cannot increase his stake in the company.

A fork in the road appears to have formed for Elon Musk’s Tesla, as the electric vehicle manufacturer has issued a stark warning to Trump’s trade administration regarding the harm tariffs could do to the company.

It would be hard to argue against the fact that Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US election has been incredibly beneficial for Elon Musk as an individual and Tesla as a company, as both saw their values increase dramatically in the months immediately following last November.

Musk’s increased power within the government, while incredibly controversial, has raised his profile significantly and also given him a close and incredibly powerful ally in the president.

While Tesla has seen it’s first sales decline in nearly a decade and continues to lose value on the stock market in recent weeks, the car company retains strong support from President Trump, shown best in a bizarre publicity stunt outside the White House where Trump claimed he would buy a ‘brand new Tesla’ and that vandalism towards Tesla dealerships will be classified as ‘domestic terrorism’.

Musk’s close relationship with Tesla proved to be incredibly beneficial in the months following the election (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

In a shocking contradiction of this confidence, however, company representatives from Tesla have written a letter to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer regarding the harmful impact of President Trump’s tariffs on the vehicle company’s international exports, as reported by CNN.

“As a U.S. manufacturer and exporter,” the letter illustrates, “Tesla encourages USTR to consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices.

“While Tesla recognizes and supports the importance of fair trade, the assessment undertaken by USTR of potential actions to rectify unfair trade should also take into account exports from the United States.”

This comes at a time where the Trump administration’s aggressive trade policies involving tariffs open the door up for retaliatory actions by targeted countries, which would in turn harm the exported sales of Tesla vehicles outside of the United States.

Further CNN reports indicate that Tesla sales are already down around 45% in Europe during the month of January, so further tariffs which would either increase the price for the consumer or incur additional costs for Tesla would stand to lose the company more money.

The letter also outlined that the Trade Representative should consider the “limitations in the domestic supply chain,” making reference to the necessity of important key components such as lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicle production.

Tesla argues that it still relies on imports of key components for their electric vehicles (Xiaolu Chu/Getty Images)

While Tesla themselves do have some factories within the US capable of producing lithium-ion batteries and other key parts, the company likely still relies heavily on imports from countries like China, who have been hit heavily by tariffs from the US government.

China is also Tesla’s second largest market, as per Reuters, delivering record sales in 2024 with 36.7% of all vehicle sales made in the country, so any retaliatory tariffs from the Chinese government on EVs would significant harm their profits – especially as the market has grown increasingly competitive with offerings from rivals like Xiaomi and BYD, reported by the New York Times.