Donald Trump’s critics have long accused him of behaving like a “crooked used-car salesman”, says Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic. On Tuesday, “he did it for real on the White House South Lawn”. Standing next to five Teslas – and holding a handwritten note listing their features and costs – the president told Elon Musk he would purchase a cherry red model at full cost. When the pair got into one of the cars, Musk explained that the electric vehicle was “like a golf cart that goes really fast”. Trump offered his own praise straight to camera: “Wow. That’s beautiful. This is a different panel than I’ve… everything’s computer!”

On the one hand this was just a “stilted, corrupt” attempt to boost a friend’s company. But it’s also a sign of Musk’s desperation. The decline in Tesla’s share price – down 50% since its post-election peak – has left the businessman an estimated $148bn poorer. (He’ll now have to get by on just $333bn.) Sales are sharply down in Europe, and in some US cities protesters have defaced or damaged Teslas and set fire to the company’s charging stations. Much of this is because of the biggest reputational – and thus financial – gamble of Musk’s career: setting up the Department of Government Efficiency. The billionaire has long done things that upset liberals and the media, from turning Twitter into a right-wing cesspit to going “all in” on Donald Trump. His ability to command cultural attention has undoubtedly been a big part of his success. But “breaking the government” – with cuts affecting millions of people – is, to use Musk’s own jargon, “orders of magnitude” different. It would be foolish to write off someone so extraordinarily successful. But Musk does seem to be “losing control of the narrative” – and for him, “the narrative is everything”.

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The rest of today’s newsletter includes:

🐍 The best of the Bad Sex Awards
🍻 Which actors played drunk by getting drunk
😍 The perils of a Russian honeytrap