Jimmy Kimmel’s Tesla Theory: Maybe Elon Musk ‘Really Is a Genius’

Jimmy Kimmel is stunned by how much the reputation of Tesla has changed in recent years.

“A lot of people who own Tesla cars have been trying to disguise their vehicles to avoid confrontations and vandalism,“ Kimmel remarked in his Thursday monologue.

He showed some clips of disguised Teslas, explaining, “Somebody pulled the Tesla logo off their Model X and replaced it with the Mazda logo.” He showed a few other photos of Teslas disguised as Audis or Subarus.

“People are even trying to disguise their Cybertrucks,” Kimmel said. “That’s like trying to pass off Chewbacca for a Chihuahua. It doesn’t seem right.”

Kimmel joked, “Driving a Tesla used to mean you were a big-city, green juice-drinking, yoga liberal. Now nobody knows what it means.”

The late night host wondered aloud, “Maybe this is all a ruse. Elon somehow tricked MAGA into driving electric cars. Maybe he really is a genius.”

He added, “But in the meantime, sales of Teslas are way down all around the world.”

Sure enough, the Tesla stock price is now nearly 200 points below its December 2024 peak, and car sales appear to be declining as a result of Musk’s controversial views and behavior.

Kimmel also ripped into President Trump’s recent change in rhetoric around the importance of the stock market.

“Trump and his Secretary of Treasury say the White House is focused on the real economy, and they are not concerned about a little market volatility,” Kimmel noted, “Which is confusing, because previously, the stock market was the only thing Trump bragged about more than playing golf.”

A giant collage of Trump social media posts, from X and Truth Social, showed around Kimmel’s face as he talked.

“These are all tweets about how great the stock market was under him,” Kimmel said.

Kimmel made this point shortly after he’d ripped into Trump for his declining approval ratings.

“You know how on the campaign trail, every day Trump promised he would bring prices down on day one?” Kimmel asked. “I guess we’re starting to finally notice that he hasn’t.”