Might Elon Musk Get The US Authorities To Purchase A Bunch Of Teslas?

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Final Up to date on: eighth February 2025, 12:01 am

It’s no secret — Elon Musk has been one thing like a shadow president early on in Donald Trump’s second time period within the White Home. To this point, that has largely targeted on issues not very associated to Tesla. Nonetheless, one has to surprise how a lot Tesla enterprise may begin getting rolled into White Home enterprise. Perhaps….

In fact, there may be not purported to be any humorous enterprise occurring between a rich businessman’s firms and his position within the authorities when he takes on a authorities place, however, nicely … I virtually began laughing there. Donald Trump is understood to be extraordinarily corrupt. There’s corruption operating via the veins of his White Home, as there was to an insane diploma throughout his first time period. Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump walked away with billions of {dollars} of assist from different nations throughout and after Trump’s final time in workplace. There have been quite a few different examples of nepotism and favoritism as nicely. And Trump’s strategy to enterprise has lengthy been modeled after — and linked to — New York Metropolis mafia norms. You scratch my again, I’ll scratch yours. You don’t, and I’d simply have somebody come on your knees — or worse.

Musk might imagine he’s a good and goal particular person, however he all the time assumes he and his companies are unmatched throughout the board of their markets and deserve the world. It could simply be “logical” that Tesla would win huge contracts and get large orders from the federal authorities. So, with Musk such an enormous a part of Trump’s present workforce, on one hand, it could not be shocking in any respect if Tesla swiftly received some large orders from the US authorities — for automobiles, EV chargers, and/or battery storage techniques.

Nonetheless … there are few potential dampeners for Elon Musk and Tesla right here.

Initially, Musk has utterly caved on quite a few Tesla-related subjects prior to now 12 months. He has claimed local weather change isn’t such an excessive risk in any case (insanely idiotic), claimed that we really shouldn’t decrease fossil gasoline manufacturing, and claimed on a number of events that the EV trade shouldn’t be getting assist from the federal government. Tesla very just lately wiped outdated content material off its web site, together with its mission, to speed up the transition to sustainable power. Elon Musk has made a U-turn on what constructed Tesla as much as the place it’s at the moment. (Good luck with that.) Within the meantime, Trump hasn’t actually budged or given an inch to EVs. He has mentioned they’re not for everybody, and he hasn’t precisely given glowing reward to Tesla autos. Actually, at a number of instances, he has derided the corporate. Who wants enemies while you’ve received buddies like these?!

Reportedly, Trump finds Musk a bit annoying and really bizarre. There’s an opportunity — that is going to shock you — there’s an opportunity Trump used Musk for his reputation and cash to be able to get elected however is keen to dump him overboard as soon as given the chance. There’s additionally newer reporting out that “Elon Musk is driving Trumpworld completely insane.” It appears lots of different influential folks round Trump are actually desperate to push Musk and his chaos crew into the closest deep physique of water. “Even the folks closest to Donald Trump are struggling beneath Elon Musk’s sudden takeover of the manager department, and so they’re turning to an surprising savior to intervene: White Home Chief of Workers Susie Wiles,” The New Republic prints. “In an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Vitali, Wired’s Jake Lahut revealed Friday {that a} slew of longtime Trump loyalists have turned to the so-called ‘ice maiden‘ to liberate the administration from Musk’s affect.” If Musk will get dumped within the Atlantic Ocean — or perhaps extra appropriately, the Arctic Ocean — it may not be really easy to persuade Trump that the federal authorities should purchase a bunch of Tesla autos. Or … perhaps agreeing to purchase a bunch of Teslas for some peace and quiet within the West Wing is the answer everybody needs. (Truthfully, although, I believe that’s an unlikely answer.)

Then there’s the matter of Hertz shopping for tens of 1000’s of Teslas solely to show round and ditch them. Hertz discovered that Tesla autos had been concerned in additional accidents than normal, upkeep took too lengthy and was too costly, and the automobiles ate via tires. If Trump is already biased in opposition to EVs and anybody concerned in procurement choices for the federal authorities introduced these issues up, it’s arduous to think about Trump greenlighting mass-scale EV procurement, even procurement of Teslas. It’s simple to see him utilizing the chance to trash Tesla and Elon.

And that really brings us to a different factor of the story. Donald needs to be #1, needs to be seen as the massive boss, needs the world to revolve round him. Elon needs all the identical issues, and he typically will get extra public consideration than Donald. This may begin to actually grate on Trump’s ego. It’s simple to think about Trump changing into resentful of Musk and dealing to hinder and hurt the bizarre geek fairly than turn out to be buddy buddy with him.

We’ll see. Yet one more factor that’s no secret is Tesla gross sales have been struggling these days. Tesla had a year-over-year gross sales decline in 2024, which was its first one because the Mannequin S got here out (in 2012). It seems that gross sales are already off to a rocky begin in 2025. If issues proceed to go within the flawed path for Tesla, and Musk will get determined, you could possibly very simply think about him forcing federal procurements of Tesla autos — and arising with rationalizations for why it completely made sense and wasn’t because of corruption or getting favors from Trump.

I don’t actually know what I believe, however compelled to guess, my guess is that Musk doesn’t really safe notable Tesla fleet purchases from the Trump admin. It doesn’t appear like he has a lot curiosity in Tesla any extra, and he doesn’t prefer to look determined and admit he has made poor choices. However who is aware of?… If issues get unhealthy at Tesla, all bets are off the desk.

Some other ideas on the query within the title and a few of the factors introduced up right here?