It’s no small feat to tank the $29 trillion U.S. economy in just seven weeks, but Donald Trump appears to be on the cusp of pulling it off. Plunging stock markets have lost some $4 trillion, Americans’ retirement accounts are shriveling, the president’s trade war is set to raise prices on everything from cars to avocados, and recession alarms are blinking red.

But this week, Trump took action to ease the fears of jittery Americans. He told them to buy Teslas.

“It’s a great product, as good as it gets,” Trump said from the White House lawn, where an assortment of the automaker’s vehicles was on display. In his hand, Trump held a Tesla sales pitch: “Teslas can be purchased as low as $299/month.”

“They have one which is $35,000, which is pretty low,” he suggested.

“Teslas aren’t all expensive,” agreed Tesla CEO Elon Musk, standing at Trump’s side wearing a black MAGA cap. “And I just wanted to thank the president for his support.”

Trump, examining one of the cars, reacted with wonder. “Wow!” said Trump. “This is a different panel. Everything’s computer!”

Tesla’s shares have lost half of their value over the previous three months, erasing $800 billion in its market value — as consumers around the world shun the vehicles, horrified by Musk’s promotion of far-right figures and his aimless sabotage of the federal government and savage slashing of its workforce. Trump, who said he bought a Tesla Model S (listed at $108,990 on his sales sheet) to show his support, promised to label those who vandalize Tesla sales lots as “domestic terrorists” (he previously said people were “illegally” boycotting Tesla and later said the protesters are “paid agitators”) and threatened: “We’re going to catch you, and you’re going to go through hell.”

Even Fox News’s Peter Doocy was skeptical about the wisdom of Trump’s pitch: “What is your message, President Trump, buying a new car while there are some folks who will see this clip at home and they are struggling with their retirement accounts, down at the moment, uncertainty about work ahead?”

“Well, I think they’re going to do great,” Trump said, before steering the subject back to Tesla’s “incredible” car plant in Texas.

The peasants are struggling? Then let them drive Teslas! Markets continued their swoon after Trump’s event, but Tesla shares were up more than 5 percent.

It was a grotesque sight: Trump using the awesome powers of the presidency to make the world’s richest man even richer — and to threaten government action against those who stand in his way.

This is precisely why we are in the mess we’re in.

Trump is running an ad hoc presidency. There are no rules. The law is strictly optional. And Trump, unbound by both, administers one shock to the system after another. There is no predictability to his actions. Business leaders and consumers have no idea what’s coming next and, therefore, have no way to plan — and that, as much as anything, is what is wrecking the economy.

Trump has unilaterally shattered the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal he negotiated with much fanfare just five years ago, at the time calling it “the largest, fairest, most balanced and modern trade agreement ever achieved.” He’s slapping huge tariffs on Mexico, Canada and Europe and is making wild threats to raise them higher. At different points this week, he threatened a 50 percent tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum and 200 percent on European alcohol — and our erstwhile allies are retaliating. Trump has similarly shocked the world’s security, destroying U.S. soft power (the administration announced this week that it had canceled 83 percent of foreign-aid programs) and chaotically cutting off military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine before restoring it days later.

One minute, Trump is declining to rule out a recession; the next, he’s saying “I don’t see it at all.” One minute, Trump is vowing to protect Americans’ Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The next, Musk is saying these entitlements are “the big one to eliminate.” (Newly installed private-equity executives at Social Security can see to it.) One minute, congressional Republicans are saying they will never pass a government spending bill that adds to the deficit without major spending cuts; the next minute, they do exactly that.

This week alone, the Trump administration eliminated half the staff at the Education Department — overnight — while making cuts that will cause as many as 2 million people to lose health insurance. After campaigning on a promise to make the nation’s capital safer, Trump successfully pushed the House to pass legislation that will all but force the District of Columbia to fire police officers. The Environmental Protection Agency terminated $20 billion in grants that had already been awarded to local communities to help reduce Americans’ energy bills, drawing a rebuke from a federal judge on Wednesday who suggested the White House had offered no justification for canceling the program other than that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin “doesn’t like it.” The administration ousted the top lawyer at the IRS because he objected to Musk’s team accessing taxpayers’ private records.

And that’s just a sampling of the chaos.