What Advantages Will Tesla Now Get with Trump–Musk Fallout?

Final Up to date on: sixth June 2025, 02:02 am

There have been just a few methods of viewing Elon Musk throwing his hat in with Donald Trump. Listed below are just a few frequent however completely different takes:

1. This can be a catastrophe, horrible, and vile. There’s a lot mistaken with this. The place can we even begin?
2. That is nice! Musk and Trump will modernize authorities, make it environment friendly, and promote all the appropriate stuff. They’re tremendous professional democracy and professional The Structure. (Notice: I believe that is the worst take and blatantly false, nevertheless it was, sadly, a quite common take.)
3. That is bizarre, and I don’t really feel nice about it, however, hey, possibly it can deliver much more folks into the EV fold. Heck, possibly it can even get a whole lot of Republicans who by no means cared about EVs or supported them to purchase EVs and promote them. Possibly it can even result in Trump and Republicans magically ignoring their Huge Oil overlords and robust EV insurance policies will prevail.

Nicely, now that Trump and Musk are throwing large barbs at one another on social media, dramatically falling out with one another, there are some factors to make and a few inquiries to ask.

Let’s begin with that first group. Lots of these folks was large Tesla followers, and massive Elon Musk followers. Tesla was constructed on the purchases of individuals in that group (in addition to some in different teams, after all). After the varied issues Elon Musk stated or did politically up to now yr or so, most of this group determined they’d by no means purchase a Tesla (or one other Tesla, because the case typically was) so long as Elon Musk is main the corporate and even benefiting from its success. Now that Trump and Musk hate one another, is that going to vary? No. The injury has been achieved.

A few of the folks in group #2 are superfans of Musk greater than they’re superfans of Trump, and lots of are superfans of Trump greater than they’re superfans of Musk. If this continues, the previous may grow to be fairly anti-Trump and even anti-GOP. (Lots of them have been earlier than they adopted Musk off the GOP cliff.) Nevertheless, the latter may simply grow to be anti-Musk and anti-Tesla. The Trump cult, as we’ve seen, is totally drunk on Kool-Assist, and lots of members in all probability solely grew to become superficial followers of Musk and Tesla. It’s questionable what number of even went so far as to consider shopping for a Tesla.

So far as group #3, I believe it’s clear the GOP shouldn’t be going to help EVs. They’re all in on oil, and that’s not altering. It’s very possible they are going to take away shopper incentives for electrical automobiles (which, after all, Biden and Democrats revived for Tesla and GM). They might even slap an annual payment on EVs, and they’ll definitely decrease gas financial system requirements and attempt to take away California’s proper to take care of larger ones. EVs are going to lose authorities help, and lots of Republicans are going to return to hating EVs and hating on Tesla.

So, the place, ultimately, does Tesla profit from this year-long affair with Trump and the GOP? Tesla has definitely misplaced a whole lot of gross sales to Democrats and Independents, and there’s no indication it achieve the identical quantity from Republicans. Even when Trump and Musk have been tremendous buddy-buddy, Tesla didn’t get a surge of curiosity or purchases from MAGA trustworthy. With the fallout, although, the corporate will lose some portion of the beneficial properties, and it’s extremely unlikely they get greater than a tiny fraction of the misplaced gross sales again.

In different phrases, it’s possible this can be a large internet loss for Tesla ultimately. And that’s with out even contemplating the hurt that’s more likely to come to Tesla gross sales if the EV tax credit score and varied EV, EV battery pack, EV battery cell, and lithium manufacturing tax credit are eliminated.

Was it price it, Elon?