Years in the past, when Biden took workplace, the main electrical car 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.
Actually, Biden credited GM’s Mary Barra as being the EV trade chief. “Mary, you electrified your complete auto trade, you led,” Biden gushed — apparently unaware that GM delivered a paltry 26 EVs in This fall 2021.
And it solely received worse.
Lawsuits started to pile up. Did the Biden administration resort to utilizing “lawfare” in opposition to Elon Musk? Onerous to say. Nevertheless, in keeping with CNBC, underneath the Biden administration, “Musk’s firms are at present embroiled in a spread of probes and lawsuits from federal companies 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 car security defects… [spanning] 19 recognized ongoing federal investigations and lawsuits in opposition to Tesla, SpaceX and X, previously referred to as Twitter.”
Presumably essentially the most public court docket case was Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s determination 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 studies, “Musk logged 1000’s of hours on the helm of Tesla and elevated its market worth ten-fold.”
Does this Delaware decide’s determination to halt Musk’s pay “odor” of lawfare?
And this determination 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 decide acknowledged, “I write to tell you that I intention to subject that call earlier than the top of this yr.” Hmmm, we’ll see how that call unfolds.
At greatest, 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 instances, probes, and lawsuits start to abate underneath the Trump administration, it’s doubtless 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, would possibly be capable of run the corporate extra successfully.
Actually, the Trump group might create insurance policies that may (gasp) truly be constructive for Tesla. Living proof — this week, Bloomberg Information reported Trump’s transition group has informed advisers it plans to make a “federal framework” for full self-driving (FSD) one of many Transportation Division’s priorities, in keeping with individuals accustomed to 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 group communicated its want to get rid of the $7,500 tax credit score for electrical automobiles. However even that might profit Tesla. Elon Musk’s automaker has margins that may stand up to dropping the tax credit score. Certain, it would sting but it surely’s doubtless that Detroit and Europe’s automakers want it extra. It’s affordable to imagine Tesla might achieve market share within the coming years as different automakers might gradual EV manufacturing.
In response to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, Trump’s insurance policies needs to be a “homerun for Tesla… Tesla has the size and scope that’s unmatched within the EV trade and this dynamic might give Musk and Tesla a transparent aggressive benefit in a non-EV subsidy surroundings, coupled by doubtless greater China tariffs that may 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 achieve 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 obvious — shareholders of Tesla ought to really feel some reduction 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.
