Former President Trump softened his stance on electric vehicles with the help of Tesla’s Elon Musk.
“I support electric vehicles. I have no choice because Elon has supported me so strongly. So I have no choice,” Trump said over the weekend.
President Trump, who has frequently opposed policies that support electric vehicles, is still expected to oppose any environmental regulations proposed by the Biden administration.
Speaking at a rally in Atlanta, he made it clear he only supported “a small percentage” of EVs, adding: “I want every type of car you can imagine, gasoline cars, hybrid cars.”
Trump as wellPositive Statement in Michigan“I’ve driven it and it’s a great car, but it’s not for everyone.”
The support for electric vehicles raises questions about the extent to which Musk and his vast fortune will sway President Trump on the issue.
“Trump’s approach would be not to mandate EVs for traditional automakers, but there may be tax incentives, which would be to Tesla’s advantage,” said Republican strategist Jason Cabel Law.
Neither the Trump campaign nor Tesla responded to The Hill’s requests for comment. Trump said last month that Musk had never pressured him to “stop” criticizing electric cars.
But the former president’s ambivalence over the weekend stands in stark contrast to his previous comments on cars, when he infamously warned in March that a Democratic candidate’s reelection would be a “catastrophe” for the auto industry.
The shift comes with Musk’s backing.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the twoDiscussed advisory rolesMusk in the second term of the Trump administration andDonate $45 million per monthto a pro-Trump PAC.
Musk said:The richest man in the world,He denied donating that amount and said he intended to donate at a “much lower level.”
President Trump has previously harshly criticized the Biden administration’s policies that are expected to push the market toward EVs, as well as tax incentives for consumers, lamenting that the current administration is “spending hundreds of billions of dollars to give wealthy people $7,500 tax credits for buying electric cars.”
“Well, I like Elon, but the car… if you want to go to a candy store and buy yourself a little bit of candy and go home, I’m all for it,” Trump said.Said Earlier this year, he told me that if he wanted to travel to a place like Mar-a-Lago to say hello to me, he’d better arrange another form of transportation.
His antipathy towards cars is part of a broader effort to win the support of autoworkers and other blue-collar workers in the Midwest.
Sam Abuelsamid, principal transportation and mobility analyst at Guidehouse Insights, told The Hill that Tesla, like other automakers, is benefiting from a consumer tax credit for electric vehicles that President Biden signed into law for 2022.
In fact, Abuel-Samid said eliminating the EV tax credit would likely hurt Tesla more than other automakers in the short term because “Tesla only sells electric cars, whereas at least other automakers have products to sell.”
Abuel-Samid said Tesla would not only benefit if the tax credit continued, but would also benefit from the leeway it would have in implementing it.
“I suspect he wants to keep those rules as flexible as possible,” he said.
However, Musk himself has posted online that ending the subsidies “will only help Tesla.”
Meanwhile, Trump continues to sharply criticize another Biden policy that Abuel-Samid said could benefit Tesla: federal funding for EV chargers.
Trump said that billions of dollars have been set aside for the effort.Few chargers availableBuilt so far.
“This whole thing is crazy,” he told the Atlanta crowd.
