General Motors recently announced that it will stop production and lay off some 15,000 employees at several U.S. and Canadian facilities. The announcement elicited a predictable outburst of indignation from President Trump. He said in a Twitter tirade that his administration is “looking into cutting all @GM subsidies, including … for electric cars.” That’s a reference to a $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit offered to buyers of battery-powered and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Trump has made a habit of attacking companies that have the nerve to make business decisions without consulting him. This summer, when Harley Davidson considered moving production overseas in response to a Trump-ignited trade war with the EU, the president threatened: “They will be taxed like never before!” It seems like he would prefer that firms make decisions based on his own political calculations, which are intimately tied to the notion that the CEO-in-chief can and should decide which companies sink and which swim.