Trump to consider potential White House role for Musk: WSJ

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has discussed the possibility of assuming an advisory role related to energy policies if Donald Trump were to be elected for a second term. This potential position has sparked discussion about Musk’s motivations and the implications of such a role.

Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman delves into the details, offering insights into whether this proposed role is a genuine effort to contribute expertise or an attempt to influence individuals’ support against Biden.

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This post was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

Elon Musk may be lending his expertise on EVs to Washington.

That is if Donald Trump wins the presidential race.

This November, the two have reporting now discussed a possible advisory role for the Tesla executive.

This is all according to the Wall Street Journal and Rick Newman joins us now with more on what a partnership between the two could mean.

Rick.

Hi guys.

It sounds as if this actually has less to do with electric vehicles and any kind of transportation or energy policy than it does with the idea that Elon Musk has just become a huge Biden critic.

Uh and he seems to be trying to work to uh get Biden Unreel elected.

I mean, he’s sort of um trying to convince other big players in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the business world not to support Biden in his re-election bid, which on the surface might sound a bit puzzling because uh I mean, uh Elon Musk, first or second claim to fame was as co-founder and CEO of Tesla, which benefits from all the green energy policies that went into place first under President Obama and then uh under President Biden, the GRE the subsidies, the tax breaks, for example, for people who buy a uh an electric vehicle that, that benefits Tesla.

But uh these guys started feuding fairly early in Biden’s presidency because every time Biden wanted to talk about evs, he, he would not mention Tesla and he would mostly mention Ford General Motors and stati Chrysler parent.

And the reason he did that is because those automakers are unionized and Tesla is not unionized.

So Musk found that irritating.

Um he started to criticize Biden at one point.

He actually called him a damp sock puppet on Twitter.

And he has ramped up his criticism of Biden during the last several months.

So he and Trump, I guess have been talking and Trump probably senses an opportunity here to get Musk on his side.

So very odd and interesting alliance.

Story continues

Yeah.

And let’s not forget Tesla also has a solar business, right?

It’s not just even the electric vehicles, but as you lay out in your piece, you talk about the different ways that you think or the different points perhaps that, that uh Musk will be able to use trying to convince Trump to get on the same page when it comes to electric vehicles.

Well, if he wanted to, uh I mean, I don’t, I don’t know that Trump would listen, but Trump has decided by the way, Trump used to before when he was president Trump kind of supported electric vehicles that was before this became politicized.

Now, Trump says things like if he gets elected, he will try to stop the sale of all electric vehicles.

I mean, that’s insane.

So what’s Elon Musk, who runs the most successful electric car company in the world going to say to Donald Trump about that?

Oh, good idea.

You should just shut down, you know, this whole sector of the, of, of the new energy economy, obviously not Trump.

He’s, he has been telling workers in the battleground states, Michigan and Wisconsin, all these cars are going to be made in China, you’re all going to lose your jobs.

That’s what he said when he went to Michigan during the auto workers strike last year.

Uh Biden has a different point of view.

Obviously, he just rolled out that 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles to keep them out of the market and bolster companies like Tesla, but it’s not winning him a fan in Elon Musk.

Well, we’ll see what ends up happening um as they uh the different parties a lot try to vie for his attention.

Right?

Thank you.

Bye guys.