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 trade chief. “Mary, you electrified your entire 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? Arduous to say. Nevertheless, based on CNBC, beneath 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 legislation 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 generally known as Twitter.”
Probably probably the most public courtroom case was Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s determination in 2024 to kill Elon Musk’s $55 billion compensation bundle. 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 beneath much more scrutiny after a vote at Tesla’s Shareholder Assembly (once more) confirmed he deserves to obtain his pay bundle. Not too long ago, the Delaware decide acknowledged, “I write to tell you that I intention to concern that call earlier than the tip 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 courtroom circumstances, probes, and lawsuits start to abate beneath the Trump administration, it’s probably 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.
In truth, the Trump staff might create insurance policies that might (gasp) really be optimistic for Tesla. Working example — this week, Bloomberg Information reported Trump’s transition staff has informed advisers it plans to make a “federal framework” for full self-driving (FSD) one of many Transportation Division’s priorities, based on folks conversant in 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 need 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 stand up to shedding the tax credit score. Certain, it should sting but it surely’s probably that Detroit and Europe’s automakers want it extra. It’s cheap to imagine Tesla might achieve market share within the coming years as different automakers might sluggish EV manufacturing.
Based on 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 atmosphere, coupled by probably increased China tariffs that might proceed to push away cheaper Chinese language EV gamers (BYD, Nio, and so forth.) 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 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.
