Earlier this week, Donald Trump staged what historians believe to be a presidential first: a stilted, fumbling White House press conference convened to boost the fortunes of a valuable donor’s floundering car company.

“Wow, that’s beautiful!” Trump said to Tesla CEO Elon Musk as they climbed into a red Model S parked on the South Lawn. “Everything’s computer!” Holding a scripted sales pitch touting the brand’s safety features, self-driving technology, and low monthly payments, Trump assured reporters that Tesla is “a great product, as good as it gets,” and complimented Musk as a “great patriot.” He promised to buy a car himself, and pay with a personal check. In what I am sure is an unrelated story, Musk, who has spent most of his time of late laying waste to the federal government at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, is reportedly preparing to donate $100 million to Trump’s political operation.

Trump did not stage this glorified infomercial because of his passion for hawking overpriced consumer products. Across the country, people have taken to registering their displeasure with Musk’s presidential cosplay by using the one tool available to them: protest. Demonstrations outside Tesla showrooms have become weekly events. Many Tesla owners, embarrassed to be associated with Musk, are trading in their cars, often at a loss. Tesla cars, dealerships, and charging stations have been targeted by vandals wielding everything from Molotov cocktails to dog poop. As it turns out, when the act of driving to the grocery store incurs a real risk of angry strangers flipping you off, cars manufactured by companies that aren’t helmed by too-online reactionaries become much more appealing.

The backlash has made a bad year worse for Tesla shareholders, who have watched the stock plummet from an all-time high of around $480 in December to $220 as of Monday. Tuesday’s little dog-and-pony show helped the price recover a bit, but by Friday afternoon, shares were trading at about $250—roughly half their value just four months earlier.? Musk, Tesla’s largest shareholder, has paid dearly for this collapse: His net worth, which Bloomberg estimated at nearly $500 billion in mid-December, now sits at around $315 billion. The company’s sales numbers, which are down by double digits in key international markets, do not suggest that a robust performance-based surge is on the horizon anytime soon.