Former President Donald J. Trump has promised, if he is re-elected, to do away with Biden administration policies that encourage the use and production of electric cars. Yet one of his biggest supporters is Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, which makes nearly half the electric vehicles sold in the United States.
Whether or not Mr. Trump would carry out his threats against battery-powered cars and trucks, a second Trump administration could still be good for Tesla and Mr. Musk, auto and political experts say.
Mr. Musk has spent more than $75 million to support the Trump campaign and is running a get-out-the-vote effort on the former president’s behalf in Pennsylvania. That will almost surely earn Mr. Musk the kind of access he would need to promote Tesla.
But Mr. Musk would also have to confront a big gap between his Washington wish list and Mr. Trump’s agenda.
While Mr. Musk rarely acknowledges it, Tesla has collected billions of dollars from programs championed by Democrats like President Biden that Mr. Trump and other Republicans have vowed to dismantle.
In Michigan, a battleground state and home to many auto factories, the Trump campaign has run ads that claim that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, wants to “end all gas-powered cars” — a position that she does not hold.
During Mr. Trump’s previous term as president, “one of the first things he did in office was to attempt to roll back vehicle pollution standards and attack clean cars and Obama-era regulations,” said Katherine Garcia, director of the Clean Transportation for All Campaign at the Sierra Club.
In theory, Mr. Musk could act as a brake on Republican efforts to eliminate programs that promote electric cars. But his political capital would be finite, and he might use his influence to ease regulatory scrutiny of Tesla self-driving technology or to preserve clean air credits that have added billions of dollars to Tesla’s bottom line.
Mr. Musk would also have to decide whether to put the priority on Tesla or on his other businesses, like SpaceX, which the federal government depends on for rocket launches. The list of Mr. Musk’s business interests that interlock with government is long.
“He wouldn’t be throwing his weight behind Trump if he didn’t think there was a benefit to him and his companies,” said Will Rhind, chief executive of GraniteShares, an investment firm that offers funds focused on Tesla. “Clearly he’s betting on a horse for a reason.”
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. The Trump campaign cited a recent interview in which Mr. Trump acknowledged that he and Mr. Musk disagreed “a little bit on the electric car.” The former president said he would terminate “on the first day” what he called electric car mandates. He added, “We want electric cars, but we want, really, to have all cars.”
Here are some of the issues on which Tesla’s interests could play a role in policymaking in a second Trump administration.
Clean Air Credits
The Environmental Protection Agency and California require automakers to meet pollution standards or buy credits from companies like Tesla that exceed those standards. Preserving those credits might be a priority for Mr. Musk.
In the third quarter, Tesla earned $739 million, or one-third of its profit, from selling clean air credits. In past years, the credits helped Mr. Musk meet financial milestones in a compensation package that helped make him the world’s richest person.
But plenty of interested parties would like to kill the credits, not only Republicans but also other automakers that aren’t selling enough electric cars to comply with pollution standards.
Manufacturing Subsidies
Tesla has also reaped billions of dollars from federal programs designed to reward manufacturers that make batteries and electric vehicles. The subsidies can cut the cost to manufacture a vehicle by hundreds of dollars. Tesla, which makes many more electric vehicles than other automakers, has probably benefited more than other manufacturers from the subsidies. (The Treasury Department does not disclose how much individual companies receive.)
Tesla has also benefited from federal funds to build charging stations. Its charging network is the largest in the United States.
If Republicans tried to eliminate the subsidies, other automakers would most likely join Mr. Musk in fighting for them. General Motors said recently that federal incentives worth $800 million had helped it to build battery factories in the United States.
Even some Republican elected officials might argue that the government should keep the money flowing because much of the financial support has gone to factories in South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas and other states governed by Republicans.
A case in point is Ken Moore, the mayor of Franklin, Tenn., just north of Spring Hill, where money from Washington helped finance a battery factory built by G.M. and LG Energy Solution. Mr. Moore, a Republican who leads an association of Tennessee mayors, said in an interview that he was not ready to buy an electric car himself, but “we’re certainly welcoming the jobs, I would say that for sure.”
Autonomous-Driving Rules
Mr. Musk has staked Tesla’s future on technology that he says will allow his cars to drive without human intervention. “It should be, frankly, blindingly obvious at this point that is the future,” Mr. Musk told investors last week.
But regulators have sometimes stood in the way. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said this month that it was investigating whether a Tesla system that the company calls “full self-driving (supervised)” was responsible for four collisions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
Mr. Musk could be expected to use his pull in the White House to try to get federal officials to back off. Tesla previously disclosed that the Justice Department was also investigating its autonomous driving technology.
He might also push for a federal law governing autonomous driving to override a patchwork of state laws. That would be one of his priorities if Mr. Trump kept his promise to install him as head of a “government efficiency” panel, Mr. Musk said last week.
But previous attempts to pass federal autonomous driving legislation died in Congress amid opposition from plaintiffs’ lawyers, safety experts and others. The company faces more than a dozen lawsuits by people who contend that they were seriously injured or lost family members because of flaws in Tesla’s driver-assistance software. Tesla is contesting the claims and has long maintained that its autonomous driving software makes its cars safer.
Unions
The United Automobile Workers union is trying to organize Tesla workers but faces intense resistance from Mr. Musk. A federal appeals court ruled last week that he did not illegally threaten to take away stock options from employees if they unionized, overturning a decision by the National Labor Relations Board.
The president appoints members of the board, which is responsible for enforcing labor laws. Mr. Trump could be expected to name members considered more friendly to business — and less likely to restrain Mr. Musk — as he did in his first term.
Tax Credits
Mr. Musk might well be happy to see Republicans eliminate a tax credit that reduces the cost of a leased electric vehicle by as much as $7,500. Tesla benefits from the leasing credit, but its competitors need it much more, especially foreign automakers, like Hyundai and BMW, whose imported cars do not qualify for a credit for car purchases.
Tesla has lobbied against the leasing credit in Washington, and it would be fairly easy for Mr. Trump to kill it if he became president again. The credit depends on a legal interpretation by the Treasury Department.
Views of Electric Vehicles
As a convert to the Trump cause, Mr. Musk could soften Republican aversion to electric vehicles. Surveys show that Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to buy battery-powered cars.
But Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican political operative who is chief executive of the EV Politics Project, a group that aims to get conservatives to embrace such cars and trucks, was not optimistic.
“Elon is becoming someone in the MAGA world,” Mr. Murphy said. But changing Republicans’ views of electric vehicles, he added, “is a big needle to move.”
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