Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s televised pitch for investors to buy Tesla shares has taken the intermingling of public and private interests into unprecedented territory.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and Howard Lutnick, U.S. commerce secretary, on the South Lawn of the White House on March 14.

Appearing Wednesday night on the Fox News Channel, Lutnick appealed to viewers to buy stock in the electric car company, calling founder Elon Musk “the best person to bet on” that he’s ever met. 

“If you want to learn something on the show tonight, it’s ‘Buy Tesla,” he said. “It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is so cheap. It’ll never be so cheap again.”

University of Texas at Austin professor Henry W. Brands, whose books have chronicled U.S. presidencies and the country’s economic history, said the episode was alarming. 

“Presidents and their subordinates have long been cheerleaders for the economy as a whole,” he said. “But I cannot remember a single instance when an administration endorsed a particular company.”

Lutnick was promoting the car maker as a counterweight to instances of vandalism against Tesla dealerships, charging stations and vehicles by what he called “a weird side of the Democratic Party.”

Recent opposition to Musk has centered on his actions as effective head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which have included the gutting of federal agencies and mass layoffs, as well as his perceived sympathy with far right figures in the U.S. and abroad.

Tesla shares soared after the election, as Musk became a key advisor to Trump, but the stock has since given up all those gains.  

In an apparent bid to reverse that trend, President Donald Trump publicly praised the car company and committed to buying a vehicle during an event with Musk that saw Tesla cars parked on the White House lawn like at a dealer’s showroom. 

Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush, says public officials who participated in the event violated standards of conduct that bar federal workers from advancing private interests in their official capacities. 

Those rules were again cast aside when Lutnick appeared on Fox to heap further praise on Tesla and its founder. 

“Who wouldn’t invest in Elon Musk?” Lutnick said. “Elon Musk is the best entrepreneur and technologist in America.”

Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, called the combined White House event and Fox appearance by Lutnick a “spree of ethics violations.”

In response to questions about the propriety of Lutnick’s televised remarks, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that “the commerce secretary was reiterating that the president supports an American-made company like Tesla who produces a very good product for the American people.”

Lutnick may have stood to gain personally from his appearance, as well: the financial firm he founded, Canter Fitzgerald, had nearly $300 million in Tesla shares on its books as of the end of last year. 

Lutnick told lawmakers during his Jan. 29 confirmation hearing that he would sell all of his holdings within 90 days of that date. The document that would accompany such a divestiture doesn’t yet appear on the U.S. Office of Government Ethics website.

Lutnick vowed in the ethics agreement he submitted during his nomination that he wouldn’t “participate personally and substantially in any particular matter” that could impact Cantor Fitzgerald’s finances.

Cantor Fitzgerald had no immediate comment. The Commerce Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Desmond Lachman, a fellow at conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, says the Tesla promotions are part of an apparent broader pattern of self-dealing within the Trump administration that also includes the president’s $TRUMP cryptocurrency venture.

“It’s symptomatic of bigger things that are going on,” says Lachman, who previously served in leadership roles at Salomon Smith Barney and the International Monetary Fund. “This is just kind of a crazy way to run a country.”