Years in the past, when Biden took workplace, the main electrical automobile firm wasn’t invited to Washington’s EV Summit. “Yeah, appears odd that Tesla wasn’t invited,” the corporate’s CEO Elon Musk stated in a tweet.
In truth, Biden credited GM’s Mary Barra as being the EV business chief. “Mary, you electrified your entire auto business, you led,” Biden gushed — apparently unaware that GM delivered a paltry 26 EVs in This fall 2021.
And it solely obtained worse.
Lawsuits started to pile up. Did the Biden administration resort to utilizing “lawfare” in opposition to Elon Musk? Onerous to say. Nonetheless, in keeping with CNBC, underneath the Biden administration, “Musk’s corporations are at the moment embroiled in a variety of probes and lawsuits from federal businesses pertaining to issues together with alleged securities regulation violations, office security, labor and civil rights violations, violations of federal environmental legal guidelines, shopper fraud and automobile security defects… [spanning] 19 identified ongoing federal investigations and lawsuits in opposition to Tesla, SpaceX and X, previously often known as Twitter.”
Probably probably the most public court docket case was Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s choice in 2024 to kill Elon Musk’s $55 billion compensation package deal. This would depart the CEO of Tesla with none compensation from Tesla for six years. Bloomberg stories, “Musk logged hundreds of hours on the helm of Tesla and elevated its market worth ten-fold.”
Does this Delaware choose’s choice to halt Musk’s pay “odor” of lawfare?
And this choice is now underneath much more scrutiny after a vote at Tesla’s Shareholder Assembly (once more) confirmed he deserves to obtain his pay package deal. Lately, the Delaware choose said, “I write to tell you that I goal to difficulty that call earlier than the tip of this 12 months.” Hmmm, we’ll see how that call unfolds.
At finest, Tesla’s CEO has been slighted and snubbed by the Biden administration. At worst, Musk has withstood an unrelenting assault over the previous 4 years. If these court docket circumstances, probes, and lawsuits start to abate underneath the Trump administration, it’s seemingly that Tesla inventory, as a long-term funding, turns into massively “de-risked” for its shareholders. It’s conceivable that Elon Musk, unburdened by these assaults, may be capable of run the corporate extra successfully.
In truth, the Trump workforce may create insurance policies that will (gasp) really be constructive for Tesla. Working example — this week, Bloomberg Information reported Trump’s transition workforce has instructed advisers it plans to make a “federal framework” for full self-driving (FSD) one of many Transportation Division’s priorities, in keeping with individuals aware of the matter. This might assist Tesla fast-track its rollout for robotaxis within the not-so-distant future.
That stated, not all of Trump’s insurance policies will assist EV automakers. Already, Trump’s workforce communicated its want to eradicate the $7,500 tax credit score for electrical autos. However even that might profit Tesla. Elon Musk’s automaker has margins that may face up to shedding the tax credit score. Positive, it can sting but it surely’s seemingly that Detroit and Europe’s automakers want it extra. It’s cheap to imagine Tesla may acquire market share within the coming years as different automakers may sluggish EV manufacturing.
Based on Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, Trump’s insurance policies needs to be a “homerun for Tesla… Tesla has the dimensions and scope that’s unmatched within the EV business and this dynamic may give Musk and Tesla a transparent aggressive benefit in a non-EV subsidy atmosphere, coupled by seemingly greater China tariffs that will proceed to push away cheaper Chinese language EV gamers (BYD, Nio, and so on.) from flooding the U.S. market over the approaching years.”
Ultimately, Elon Musk ought to acquire traction with the brand new administration contemplating his shut relationship with Trump and his work on the forthcoming DOGE (Division of Authorities Effectivity). How this all impacts Tesla stays to be seen. However one factor is evident — shareholders of Tesla ought to really feel some aid because the inventory has been “de-risked” transferring ahead.
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Co-founder of EVANNEX, Matt Pressman owns each a Tesla Mannequin S and Mannequin 3 and stays a long-term investor in TSLA inventory. He’s written extensively about Tesla and his work has been revealed in CleanTechnica, InsideEVs, and Teslarati. He’s additionally appeared quite a few instances on Fox Enterprise Information and PBS to supply his views on Elon Musk and Tesla.
