When Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president last month, the Tesla founder and CEO endorsed a candidate who promises to “drill, drill, drill,” “end the electric vehicle mandate.” and cut the subsidies that helped Tesla become the electric vehicle leader. manufacturer in the United States.
Government loans, tax breaks and other measures to promote electric vehicles have been so important to Tesla’s rapid growth, despite Musk’s gradual adoption of the former president and star His Republican experience in recent years, the company has continued to lobby the US and state governments for benefits. a promotion endorsed by the Democratic Party.
In February, in a request to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Tesla called on the Biden administration to implement stricter vehicle emissions regulations on California than the rest of the country – an idea that Trump rejects.
Months earlier, in an earlier filing with the group, Tesla had pushed for regulations that would ban the production of most gasoline cars by 2035 – the so-called “EV order” that Trump and others on the American right criticized it.
This difference is not the first time that the billionaire entrepreneur – who himself rejects larger subsidies – has sent mixed signals about business and politics.
“Elon tends to say he’s against subsidies while Tesla wears them like a hungry Godzilla,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who runs the EV Politics Project, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group that seeking bilateral support for electric vehicles.
People familiar with Musk’s management at the automaker told Reuters that his approach to subsidies was pragmatic and that he was willing to accept public money if it became available. Musk’s willingness to ignore Republican opposition to the industry he helped found suggests he is focused on goals that may not align with his companies’ direct interests.
“Tesla is not the end game for him,” said Andrew Ward, a management professor at Lehigh University, pointing to Musk’s achievements in fields from artificial intelligence to space exploration to neuroscience. Musk could “some of the short-term interests in Tesla,” said Ward, “if it suits the long-term interests of his desires.”
Musk and Tesla did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. A spokesman for Trump also did not respond. A White House spokesman declined to comment.
The growing connection between Trump and Musk could be seen on Monday night when the head of Tesla plans to interview the Republican candidate on X, Musk’s social media platform.
It is not clear what intentions Musk could pursue through the growing opposition to progressive platforms – from EV subsidies to identity politics.
His once uncertain support for Trump solidified in July when Musk endorsed Trump after the failed assassination attempt on the former president and said he would fund a political action committee that would have spent $21 million supporting him and fighting the Democrats.
A few days after the endorsement, user X asked Musk if he would comment on Trump’s comments on electric cars. “It’ll be fine,” Musk replied.
Regardless of Musk’s end game, public records clearly show that Tesla has benefited from government support since its founding more than two decades ago, largely because of its role in moving the USA to cleaner cars. Tesla’s first major manufacturing facility, in Fremont, California, was built with the help of a $465 million loan from the US Department of Energy, which was repaid three years later.
Most recently, Tesla has raised nearly $9 billion from the sale of so-called “regulatory (bond) loans” since 2018, according to securities filings. These credits are provided by the federal governments and state in the US for manufacturers that exceed increasingly strict emissions regulations and can be sold to other car makers that cannot comply.
“Without California regulators, Tesla wouldn’t exist,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a conference in 2022, citing the importance of government loans to the maker’s finances.
A Reuters review of Congressional lobbying records — and Tesla’s public statements to federal and state agencies — shows the company continues to work to shape public policy for such benefits.
In February of this year, Tesla said in a filing with the US Treasury that government support would “continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the nation’s public health and welfare” by accelerating the transition away from fossil fuel.
“reasonable person”
Musk once criticized Trump for dismissing the challenge of climate change.
In June 2017, five months into Trump’s presidency, Musk left White House advisory panels as the administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement, a landmark 2016 treaty designed to address climate problems. global “Climate change is real,” Musk wrote at the time. “Getting out of Paris is not good for America or the world.”
After Trump lost his bid for re-election in 2020, Musk told Fortune magazine that he was “excited” about President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda and optimistic “about what the future holds.” your constant energy”.
However, Musk was soon annoyed by the White House’s failure to invite Tesla to the 2021 meeting of EV makers in a well-documented program. In December of that year, Musk left Biden’s campaigns and criticized plans for the Inflationary Reduction Act (IRA), a large stimulus package based in part on clean energy subsidies.
“I would just scrap the whole law,” Musk told the Wall Street Journal at the time, adding that Tesla didn’t need public money.
However, since the law was passed in August 2022, Tesla has sung a different song. In formal comments to the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, the company praised the law and said it would seek “continued commitment to ensure that the benefits of the IRA are fully realized. ”
Among other benefits under the law, electric vehicle buyers can receive subsidies of up to $7,500 per vehicle if they meet certain income requirements. Tesla has said the bill’s battery manufacturing tax credits could bring the company up to $250 million per quarter. Musk himself said in a conference call last year that the incentives could be huge.”
Other formal comments led to various federal agencies seeking government support. A July 2023 submission to the EPA appealed sympathetically to the downtrodden: Tesla lobbied the agency for stricter emissions limits to “improve poor air quality in many urban areas, causing a into areas with vulnerable populations. ”
For Tesla, emissions control isn’t just about the environment.
By increasing demand for carbon credits from less efficient vehicle makers, tougher limits help Tesla make billions of dollars by selling those credits to rivals such as General Motors and Stellantis . In the last quarter alone, Tesla made $890 million selling these credits, according to a securities report filed in July. The company reported net income of $1.5 billion for the quarter.
In an email, GM said it buys such credits to keep up with changing market and regulatory conditions. Stellantis did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump has opposed tougher emissions regulations and criticized subsidies for EV manufacturers. Shortly after endorsing the former president, Musk echoed that sentiment. “Remove the subsidies,” he wrote on social media a week before Tesla reported its $890 million in loans. “This will only help Tesla.”
Some shareholders disagreed. Ross Gerber, an outspoken investor who owned about $58 million in the automaker in the first quarter, told Reuters that Musk’s support for the former president was “100 percent against his interests personal finance” and those of “the leading clean energy company. , that is Tesla
In interviews, three Tesla employees who had worked on the company’s political efforts told Reuters that what some see as a contradiction is a struggle between ideology and pragmatism. As an advocate of free markets, Musk is naturally opposed to most government interventions. However, if free money or other benefits were available, Tesla would be foolish not to take advantage of them.
“He is a very sensible man,” said one of the former employees.
However, Tesla’s recent lobbying efforts run counter to Trump’s statements, such as his repeated calls to “end the electric vehicle mandate.” Although there is no such mandate, the Biden administration and states like California have tried to stop production to promote the use of vehicles that run on fossil fuel.
In its July 2023 application to the EPA, Tesla specifically asked to stop manufacturing gasoline cars, saying the step is “necessary” to address the “growing climate crisis.” in June: “The risk of climate change is overestimated in the short term, but in the long term it may be correct.”
The disagreement isn’t limited to Musk’s environmental views.
In a May 2022 filing with the California Air Resources Board, Tesla described itself as a leader in creating a diverse and inclusive workplace, saying many of its employees come from communities that have long struggled to overcome historical barriers to the workplace “To overcome equal opportunity. The company wrote that “communities of color suffer disproportionately affected by air pollution.”
The filing came just days after Musk, who has become increasingly averse to identity politics, made it clear in a social media post that he could no longer endorse Democratic candidates. The Democrats, he wrote at the time, were “the party of division and hate.”
In the weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the party’s nominee for the White House, Musk has made it clear that he is not a fan of her candidacy. Last week, after the
Joseph Costello, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, said in a statement: “Trump is bought and paid for by anti-worker billionaires, and Elon knows that Trump will give him reckless tax breaks at the expense of the middle class.
2024-08-12 10:00:20
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