News
Why Trump’s Tesla Showcase Mattered to Elon Musk
It wasn’t so long ago that Elon Musk couldn’t even get an invitation to the White House.
The year was 2021, and President Joe Biden was announcing tighter pollution rules and promoting his electric vehicle policies.
Behind him on the lawn were gleaming examples — a Ford F-150 Lightning, a Chevrolet Bolt EV, a Jeep Wrangler — as well as the chief executives of the companies that made them. But the nation’s biggest electric vehicle producer was nowhere to be seen.
“Seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited,” Musk tweeted before the event.
The Biden White House explained the snub by noting that the automakers that had been invited were the nation’s three largest employers of the United Automobile Workers, a powerful union, and it suggested that the administration would find other ways to partner with Tesla. (Union animus toward electric vehicles later became a problem for Biden.) But today, the moment is seen as a turning point in a feud between Musk and Biden that some Democrats say they have come to regret deeply.
“They left Elon out,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who is working to get his party to embrace electric vehicles, “and now he hates ’em.”
It was hard not to think about that episode yesterday when Musk and Trump lined up Teslas, including Cybertrucks, on the White House driveway and proceeded to rattle off their benefits like denizens of a suburban showroom.
“I love the product,” Trump said.
“Try it,” Musk said. “You’ll like it!”
Musk now has the White House attention and promotion that he wanted several years ago — and with it, a pile of potential benefits for some of his companies — but it’s come at a price. He donated some $300 million largely through his own super PAC to help Trump get elected. My colleagues Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman reported yesterday that he’s signaled a willingness to put another $100 million into groups controlled by Trump’s political operation.
His alliance with Trump has also eaten into his customer base. Before the election, Murphy said, Democrats were four times more likely than Republicans to buy an electric vehicle. Now, sales of Teslas are slumping, and some Democrats are turning theirs back in to dealers.
Musk may be hoping to find a new market on the other end of the political spectrum. Trump, who has spent years denigrating electric vehicles, insisted he was buying one, with a check. Sean Hannity, the Trump ally, said he, too, would buy a Tesla Model S Plaid as a show of solidarity with Musk.
“This thing rips,” he said on his show, “and you can go 400 miles without a charge.”
AGENCY REPORT
47 percent
That’s the size of the staff cuts at the Education Department, an agency that Trump has said he wants to eliminate. The department announced on Tuesday that it was firing some 1,300 employees. Another 572 employees took separation packages offered in recent weeks, and 63 probationary workers were terminated last month. The department started the year with more than 4,100 workers.
The cuts struck a blow to efforts that measure achievement in U.S. schools. At least 800 Education Department research employees and outside partners have lost their jobs.
More on government agencies
MEANWHILE on X
$TSLA
Musk is using his X account as a megaphone. My colleague Kate Conger guides you through his most important messages in recent days.
Musk initially celebrated his White House car show on Tuesday, but his posts on X eventually took a darker turn.
By Wednesday, he was promoting theories that protests and vandalism at Tesla dealerships were part of a Democrat-funded effort to undermine him.
“The dirty tricks campaign against me & my companies happened exactly as predicted,” he wrote, re-sharing an old post that predicted Democrats would turn on him because of his support for Republicans.
Musk shared posts from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, in which she called for an investigation into Democratic advocacy groups that she claimed were paying for protests against Tesla.
Soon “$TSLA” was trending on X, as Tesla investors celebrated the stock’s rally after losses earlier in the week. Shares in the electric vehicle maker rose seven percent after Musk’s White House appearance, showing the power of his proximity to the president to help his companies.
— Kate Conger
BEHIND THE STORY
The meaning of Musk’s suit
Elon Musk did something unusual last week: He put on a suit and tie, twice. My colleague Shawn McCreesh, a White House reporter, took that to be a sign of a demotion. I asked Shawn to tell us a little more.
Why does it matter so much that Musk decided to wear a suit last week?
I think there is a costume element to Musk’s marauding through the capital — that “Tech Support” T-shirt he constantly wears, and the little joke he tells when he wears it, is very much part of the whole shtick.
This sudden change of wardrobe coincided with a few other things happening around him last week that sure looked like the beginning of a power clampdown. That this most classic and essential of Washington symbols — the gray suit and tie — should also be the symbol of his subjugation was fascinating.
Musk was back to the old blazer-and-T-shirt look at the Tesla event yesterday. What does that mean?
It’s his look, which I guess Trump will continue to tolerate. That he does says a lot about Musk’s power and influence in Trump’s court, because Trump absolutely loves suits. He has written about his love of them in several of his books over the years. It is his costume. It is what people wear when they dress up as him for Halloween.
Rulers throughout history have had strict rules about how their courts are allowed to dress. King Louis IV, for example, had a rule that only a select group of noblemen could wear a certain blue silk jacket like his. Louis also loved diamonds, brocaded coats, elaborate wigs and shoes with red heels that symbolized the blood of his enemies whom he vowed to crush under his feet.
Some people in Washington who dress slovenly on purpose — like John Fetterman and, to a degree, Bernie Sanders — do so to signal that they are one of the people. Musk strikes me as the opposite. His informality seems to be about reminding everyone that he is in a league of his own.
Tell us, Shawn — when do you wear a suit?
Well, after writing about this topic, I felt it’d be rather hypocritical not to wear one. So I’ve got a suit on today.
Three San Francisco couples set out Monday for their annual road trip to Ashland, Ore., for the town’s famous Shakespeare festival. They drove separately and planned to meet at 6:30 p.m. on the terrace of their favorite Japanese restaurant there.
They had booked a table for six, but only four showed up for dinner.
Judith and Wylie Sheldon were found dead in their running car on the side of the road to Oregon, shocking their friends and family and leaving a hole in San Francisco’s arts and film world.
Ms. Sheldon, 84, was the daughter of William Wyler — who won three Oscars for best director — and chaired the board of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Mr. Sheldon, 86, was a prominent lawyer.
David Smith, who had befriended the couple more than 40 years ago, said in an interview that he and the others at the dinner table had grown nervous as time ticked on and their friends did not answer repeated calls to their cellphones. They learned they had not checked into their hotel either.
The friends eventually learned from one of the couple’s sons that the California Highway Patrol had found the couple at 5:46 p.m., both dead inside their running Jeep Compass. It was parked on the side of Interstate 5, north of Redding, Calif., more than 100 miles from their destination, the authorities said. Ms. Sheldon was driving, while Mr. Sheldon was in the passenger seat, according to the authorities.
The Redding area on Monday was under an extreme heat warning issued by the National Weather Service. Temperatures reached 109 degrees, according to the Weather Service.
Mr. Smith said he learned from the son that the couple had been found without any water or other liquids in the car. The fan was on high, but the air conditioning was not working, meaning they might have been blasted with hot air, Mr. Smith said. The windows were rolled down. The car had plenty of gas, and there were no signs of mechanical failure or foul play, Mr. Smith said the son told him.
“They didn’t crash. They stopped. They both just died there,” Mr. Smith said. “The entire thing is so bizarre. We’re still in a state of shock.”
The circumstances and cause of the couple’s death is under investigation but “appears to be medically related,” the Highway Patrol said in a statement.
Whether the heat contributed to the couple’s death “may be determined” by an autopsy, a spokesman for the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office said, adding that one had not been scheduled yet and could take several weeks to complete.
“We’ll just have to see,” the spokesman, Tim Mapes, said.
The Sheldons met at Stanford University and had two sons. They lived in a large home in San Francisco’s upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood that had views of the bay from the front and a garden out back.
They hosted many parties there on behalf of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and sometimes let revelers pose for photos with Mr. Wyler’s Oscar statuettes. Ms. Sheldon fell in love with silent movies after first seeing those created by her father — before his better known blockbusters like “Ben-Hur” and “Roman Holiday” — only about 30 years ago, said Anita Monga, artistic director of the festival.
Stacey Wisnia, the festival’s executive director, said the couple was generous, delightful and unassuming.
Back in Ashland, Ore., Mr. Smith said the four remaining friends had distracted themselves from their grief by attending plays, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Come From Away.” They were able to give away their friends’ tickets.
Ms. Monga had last seen Ms. Sheldon just last month at the film festival, which was held at the newly remade Castro Theater.
“This is such a shock,” Ms. Monga said of the deaths. “Also because it’s still a mystery.”
Luigi Mangione appears for a pretrial hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, June 17, 2026.
Angelina Katsanis/AP
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Angelina Katsanis/AP
New York — In a dramatic reversal, Luigi Mangione’s legal team on Thursday backed away from a plan to use a psychiatric defense when his case goes to trial in state court in September. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to murdering health insurance CEO Brian Thompson in 2024 on a Manhattan street.
At a hearing only a day earlier before state Judge Gregory Carro, Mangione’s attorneys confirmed that Mangione had been undergoing psychiatric evaluation. They signaled that his defense would be based at least in part on the argument that Mangione was experiencing “extreme emotional disturbance.”
But in a one-line letter sent to Carro on Thursday, Mangione’s team said that “at this time” they no longer intend to introduce psychiatric evidence during the trial. It’s unclear what sparked the shift. Mangione’s team didn’t respond to NPR’s request for comment.
Former Manhattan prosecutor and legal analyst Gary Galperin told NPR it was a “stunning reversal” for Mangione to withdraw from the psychiatric defense. “One can only speculate at this point as to the reasons,” he said.
“What remains, of course, at this point is the question of what defense they will pursue at trial,” he added.
This maneuver came after Carro ordered Mangione’s attorneys to quickly share psychiatric information with prosecutors.
“They need to know what the malady is that this defendant suffers and how that triggered extreme emotional distress,” he said, during Wednesday’s hearing. “I’m not going to let you surprise people on the eve of trial. Get it done.”
Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joel Seidemann repeatedly complained that Mangione’s team was “stonewalling” the prosecution by withholding medical information about his psychiatric state. “We have gotten nothing,” Seidemann said.
Mangione’s lead attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo denied her team was delaying the court process or improperly withholding information.
But legal analyst Richard Schoenstein says by withdrawing the psychiatric defense, Mangione’s team “is avoiding the court deadline to produce its psychiatric evidence.”
According to Schoenstein, this latest move “does not entirely foreclose” Mangione’s team from returning to some form of psychiatric argument during the trial, but he added that such a defense would now be far more difficult.
Mangione’s case has drawn worldwide attention. Legal experts say the 28-eight-year old has drawn an unusual level of public support because of his criticism of the health insurance industry. Thompson, a father of two, was CEO of UnitedHealthcare at the time of his murder.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Carro also indicated that a tranche of court documents would be made public that apparently relate to Mangione’s potential psychiatric defense. On Thursday, Carro reversed course.
In a signed order, he said that because Mangione will no longer present psychiatric evidence, “the court’s previous order sealing certain transcripts, emails, and documents, remains in effect.”
Mangione’s state trial is scheduled to begin in early September, with a federal trial expected to take place later.
The museums, designed by conservative nonprofits and Trump appointees, tell the story of early America, from colonization to revolution. The one exhibition looking beyond the early years is the “Wall of American Heroes.” It is a list of 51 people, chosen to illustrate 250 years of American history.
A White House spokesman said they were “individuals who shaped this nation’s history, culture and spirit across generations.”
The people pictured on this national honor roll — and the people left out — help illustrate what this administration sees as the highlights of American history.
Amid the administration’s efforts to reshape the nation’s relationship with its past, Trump appointees heavily weighted the list toward a single era of American history — and a few specific kinds of hero.
The other exhibitions in the Freedom Trucks were crafted by a pair of conservative nonprofits, PragerU and Hillsdale College. But the “Wall of American Heroes” was created by Freedom 250, a nonprofit effort whose leaders were chosen by President Trump and that was created to lead the planning of celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday, overshadowing a bipartisan congressional commission.
A spokeswoman for Freedom 250 said Mr. Trump was not directly involved in the selection of those featured.
But the list clearly tracks Mr. Trump’s own lifetime and the heroes of the conservative political movement.
The wall’s tilt toward heroes of the baby boomer generation, for instance, extends beyond Hollywood stars and musicians. Of the four religious leaders on the list, two — Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the Rev. Billy Graham — also appeared on TV regularly in the 1950s and 1960s. The only painter on the list is Norman Rockwell, known for his idealized depictions of American life in that period.
By contrast, there is only a handful of figures from the first decades of American independence.
“That’s a disservice, if your intention is to present the last 250 years,” said Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association. “Because all of the people on this list are building on the work and struggles and progress that was made by the people in the 150 years prior.”
The “Wall of American Heroes” was inspired by a similar display in a traveling museum created by the State of Virginia. But Virginia’s display celebrates little-known historical figures.
Mr. Trump’s, by and large, celebrates people who are already well-known — and, often, people who were famous in their own time. For example, it praises P.T. Barnum, a circus impresario who used hoaxes and freak shows to draw crowds. The wall calls him an “icon of American sensationalism.”
The spokeswoman for Freedom 250 said that many of the names on the wall were drawn from a list of 250 people that Mr. Trump wants to include in a “Garden of American Heroes” in Washington.
The spokeswoman declined to say what criteria were used to narrow down the list.
The only president whose name appears on the wall — not on the list of heroes, but alongside his quotation — is Mr. Trump himself.
Explore the Wall of Heroes
Navigate the display by dragging from side to side.
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