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 all the auto trade, you led,” Biden gushed — apparently unaware that GM delivered a paltry 26 EVs in This fall 2021.
And it solely acquired worse.
Lawsuits started to pile up. Did the Biden administration resort to utilizing “lawfare” towards Elon Musk? Laborious to say. Nonetheless, in accordance with CNBC, underneath the Biden administration, “Musk’s firms are at the moment embroiled in a spread 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, client fraud and car security defects… [spanning] 19 identified ongoing federal investigations and lawsuits towards Tesla, SpaceX and X, previously referred to as Twitter.”
Probably essentially 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 reviews, “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 “scent” 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. Not too long ago, the Delaware choose acknowledged, “I write to tell you that I purpose to difficulty that call earlier than the top 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, would possibly be capable to run the corporate extra successfully.
Actually, the Trump staff may create insurance policies that may (gasp) truly be optimistic for Tesla. Working example — this week, Bloomberg Information reported Trump’s transition staff has advised advisers it plans to make a “federal framework” for full self-driving (FSD) one of many Transportation Division’s priorities, in accordance with folks 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 staff communicated its want to eradicate the $7,500 tax credit score for electrical automobiles. However even that might profit Tesla. Elon Musk’s automaker has margins that may face up to dropping the tax credit score. Certain, it is going to sting however it’s seemingly that Detroit and Europe’s automakers want it extra. It’s affordable to imagine Tesla may achieve market share within the coming years as different automakers may sluggish EV manufacturing.
In keeping with Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, Trump’s insurance policies ought to be a “homerun for Tesla… Tesla has the size and scope that’s unmatched within the EV trade and this dynamic may give Musk and Tesla a transparent aggressive benefit in a non-EV subsidy setting, coupled by seemingly 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.”
In the long run, 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 evident — shareholders of Tesla ought to really feel some aid because the inventory has been “de-risked” shifting 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 occasions on Fox Enterprise Information and PBS to offer his views on Elon Musk and Tesla.
