Business
Musk has Trump's ear, and that could help Tesla. Other EV makers? Maybe not so much
President-elect Donald Trump’s full-throated support for oil and gas drilling might be expected to send a chill through the electric vehicle industry were it not for a wild card in his fledgling administration: Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk.
Trump has long railed against EV mandates and subsidies. Then came August, when Musk endorsed Trump and began pouring millions of dollars into the Trump campaign. Not long after, Trump said he was now in favor of some market share for EVs.
“I have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump said at a rally in Atlanta.
What does the Trump administration mean for the future of electric vehicles?
Clean transportation advocates are hopeful that Musk will continue to influence Trump’s position on EVs.
“If there’s a silver lining” to Trump’s victory, said Ramses Madou, chair of the Open Mobility Foundation, “it’s that Elon Musk can dial back on Trump’s anti-EV-ness.”
Here are some of the issues facing supporters of electric cars and trucks, and how Musk might influence them.
BUYER INCENTIVES
Reuters and other news organizations reported Friday that Trump plans to end the $7,500 consumer tax credit for EVs — a move that Musk supports.
After building his company on the back of federally financed buyer incentives, Musk believes Tesla no longer needs them — and that taking away the subsidies will mainly hurt his competitors.
“Take away the subsidies,” Musk wrote on X in July. “It will only help Tesla.”
Why would a company turn away such free money? Because Tesla is profitable, and the EV business at the traditional automakers as yet is not. Taking away buyer credits would hurt them more than it would hurt Tesla, whose EV market share has begun to drop in the face of new competition.
But there’s more to the story: So far this year, Tesla has posted $4.79 billion in profit. Of that, $2.07 billion came from government-required credits bought from Tesla by other automakers. That’s 43% of net income.
The EV federal credit system is simple in concept: Sell too many gasoline-powered cars, you accumulate deficits. If most of the vehicles you sell are EVs, you earn credits. To avoid government penalties, deficit holders must buy credits from companies like Tesla.
In other words, Tesla’s competitors are directly and dramatically boosting Tesla’s profits with rich flows of cash that they otherwise might have used in their own EV development.
How do EV buyer incentives fit in, and why might Musk want to see them gone? The fewer EVs other carmakers sell, the more credit money Tesla takes in as pure profit, boosting its own stock price and putting pressure on the shares of competitors. Since the election, Tesla stock is up 28%, closing at $320.72 on Friday. Most other automakers’ shares are stuck in neutral.
FEDERAL GRANTS
Tesla doesn’t just build passenger vehicles, it builds commercial trucks too. At least it’s trying to. To great fanfare, Musk introduced the Tesla Semi all-electric big rig in 2017. To date, the company has sold very few. It plans to begin mass production in 2026. Meanwhile, traditional truck builders are selling their own electric big rigs, and can’t keep up with demand.
The demand is high because of government mandates in California, sweetened with generous state and federal grants worth billions. Few would buy an electric truck today without government help. A new diesel truck typically costs $150,000 to $200,000. An all-electric version costs two to three times that amount.
Cutting off those federal grants could help Tesla against the competition. It would hurt major truck makers and could destroy electric truck startup companies, while giving the long-delayed Tesla Semi time to catch up.
The federal grant money is available to buyers of hydrogen fuel-cell trucks too. Musk has long belittled fuel-cell vehicles and Trump has often talked about hydrogen cars blowing up like an “atomic bomb.” That’s a gross exaggeration, as gasoline, battery and hydrogen vehicles all are subject to fire and explosion, albeit in different ways. Nonetheless, if Trump asks Musk’s opinion on dropping support for hydrogen vehicles, Musk is sure to egg him on.
TARIFFS
Musk’s conversations with Trump on tariffs could be tricky. Tesla runs a huge assembly plant in Shanghai, subject to Chinese government control. While showing little self-regulation on issuing blistering attacks on politicians he does not like, Musk has only kind words for Chinese leaders including President Xi Jinping.
Early this year, Musk seemed to support trade barriers against a potential influx of Chinese electric vehicles to the United States, saying Chinese companies could “demolish” other EV makers around the world. Within months, though, he changed his tune, opposing tariffs on EVs because “things that inhibit freedom of exchange or distort the market are not good.”
One of the main pillars of Trump’s economic policy is “beautiful tariffs” of 60% or more on Chinese goods. Business leaders, economists and even members of his own party have warned that such a policy could boost inflation and hurt economic growth.
“Much of the goods America imports are intermediate goods used in the production of other things,” thus lifting costs across the board for products manufactured in the U.S. and causing economywide “self-harm,” according to Jonathan Humphrey, senior economist at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. He’s talking mainly about all the intermediary products that go into making cars, batteries and their enabling parts, even for goods made in America.
Trump is getting advice from all sides on the matter, and it remains to be seen whether decisions on tariffs go Musk’s way — or Xi’s.
CHARGING
Musk doesn’t talk much about federal funding for public EV charging stations, but it’s hard to see why he’d fight against it.
Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill devoted $5 billion to build public charging stations for cars and trucks every 50 miles along interstate highways. Tesla has built a widespread and dependable network of charging stations, and is now inviting owners of non-Tesla EVs to pay Tesla to use them, but more EV stations in more places will make things easier for owners of Teslas — and ease the need for Tesla to spend capital on building more of them.
Trump is unlikely to ax a program that will produce economic benefits across the country, in congressional districts red and blue. In any case, the money is already allocated, and “it would take an act of Congress to change that,” Debs Schrimmer of the U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation said at the CoMotion LA mobility conference in Little Tokyo last week.
CERTAINTY
Musk has never been considered one to inject certainty into any situation. That adds to the tension around Trump’s economic plans.
Alex Gold, chief executive of BWD Strategic North America, is optimistic about the future for EVs, even under Trump.
“Rather than pulling back on clean energy, maybe he’ll just relax on the dirty [energy] so people can do both,” Gold said. “If Trump is pro-business, what business wants is certainty, and to make a U-turn right now would be surprising.”
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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