Elon Musk Spent $118 Million To Elect Trump. What Will He Get in Return?
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s biggest benefactors in his bid for a second term was Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and the richest man on the planet. Musk went all in on Trump’s reelection bid and now seems primed to exert an outsized role in a second administration. But what is he likely to get in return?
Even before hopping onstage and declaring himself “dark MAGA” at an October Trump rally in Pennsylvania, Musk put a staggering amount of cash into the race: Starting in the summer, when he endorsed Trump after the former president narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, Musk poured more than $118 million into his own pro-Trump political action committee—an amount greater than what Trump’s official campaign raised in total small-dollar donations.
After that, Musk was fully on board, casting Trump as America’s last hope. “Very few Americans realize that, if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election,” he wrote in a September post on X. “Far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it!”
But given his business portfolio, Musk had very clear financial interests in the election’s outcome—especially since the president wields considerable discretionary authority over many government subsidies. In a second Trump administration, Musk could stand to exert considerable influence on government policy to his own benefit. But if he pushes Trump to adopt a more broadly deregulatory agenda, it could provide benefits far beyond just Musk’s own companies.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly suggested he would rescind a program providing $7,500 tax credits for new electric vehicle (E.V.) purchases, telling Reuters, “tax credits and tax incentives are not generally a very good thing.”
Musk has made similar comments, telling The Wall Street Journal in 2021, “We don’t need the $7,500 tax credit.” In July 2024, he posted on X, “Take away the subsidies. It will only help Tesla. Also, remove subsidies from all industries!”
But Tesla is a major beneficiary of government incentives. Tesla’s Model Y is one of the few E.V.s that still qualifies for the purchase credit after more strenuous sourcing requirements kicked in. The Model Y accounted for one-third of all E.V. sales between January 1 and June 10 of this year; during the same period, the government dispensed more than $1 billion worth of E.V. credits. And last year, Tesla listed certain models of its new Cybertruck at or below $79,990, just $10 below the cutoff for tax credit eligibility.
Tesla also benefits from environmental credits, which state and federal governments give out for building low-emission vehicles. “Tesla has reported around $10 billion” in sales of excess credits “since 2015,” CNBC reported last week. “Regulatory credits were about 60% of Tesla’s net income in the second quarter of 2024, and 39% in the third quarter. Other government rebates on EV sales represented about 50% of Tesla’s third-quarter profit.”
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