Musk's 'golden ticket': Trump win could hand Tesla billionaire unprecedented power
Jessica Guynn and Bailey Schulz, USA TODAY
Updated 5 min read
Elon Musk, who shelled out over $100 million and turned his social media platform X into an online megaphone to get out the vote for Donald Trump, has emerged as one of the presidential election’s biggest winners.
The world’s richest man was the only Fortune 100 CEO to pick a side, endorsing Trump moments after the July assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally.
Rubbing shoulders with other wealthy donors at Mar-a-Lago as Trump rode a red wave to success, Musk tweeted a photo of a SpaceX rocket launching: “The future is gonna be fantastic.”
Will Musk’s election wager pay off?
Trump made clear in his victory speech that Musk will have an ally in the White House. “A star is born,” Trump said of the tech billionaire.
That star power could hand Musk significant sway over government policy and the federal agencies that oversee his constellation of six companies from Tesla to SpaceX, which have been awarded $15.4 billion in federal government contracts over the past decade, according to Open Secrets.
It’s common for presidents to tap business leaders for prominent roles in their administrations. But Musk’s reach could be unprecedented, said Dan Schnur, who teaches strategic political communications at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley.
“If Donald Trump were Willy Wonka, Elon Musk just won all five golden tickets,” Schnur said. “Trump not only respects him, not only does he revere him, but Trump feels like he owes him. Add that up and it’s hard to imagine Musk writing a wish list that Trump won’t rubber stamp."
Elon Musk joins Donald Trump on stage Oct. 5 in Butler, Pennsylvania as Trump speaks at a campaign rally.
Musk may have big role in Trump White House
Trump has pledged to give Musk an official role in his administration cutting government spending, which he has referred to as the “Secretary of Cost Cutting.” Musk has joked he will run a “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE, referring to the cryptocurrency he champions.
Musk tweeted he was excited to work with Trump on a commission to slash government spending. He has boasted he could slash $2 trillion from the federal budget but has not provided any specifics on how.
What's more, Musk could have a say in picking the heads of the regulatory agencies that oversee his companies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
Over a parody meme of Musk holding a ceramic sink in the Oval Office – a nod to when he carried an actual sink into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters after taking over the company – Musk wrote: “Let that sink in.”
Gita Johar, a professor at Columbia Business School in New York, said she has not seen such an "explicit quid pro quo" before.
“I think it could be a very cozy arrangement that benefits Musk,” Johar said.
Musk potentially being handed the power to shape agencies that he has criticized in the past may be problematic, according to Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
“It's one thing to include business leaders in an advisory committee,” Clark said. “But the chair of any kind of efficiency commission should put the public’s interest first. That would be impossible for Elon Musk to do while Elon Musk has so many contentious interactions with federal government agencies.”
What Trump win means for Tesla, SpaceX
Tesla shares surged Wednesday as investors bet that Trump’s return to the White House will boost the electric carmaker.
Trump, who has expressed disdain for electric vehicles and President Joe Biden’s EV tax credits, signaled a shift after Musk’s endorsement. “I’m for electric cars. I have to be, you know because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump said at an August rally. “So I have no choice.”
Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives estimated Tesla could see a $100 billion-plus jump in market cap. The elimination of subsidies would hurt Tesla less than other EV makers.
"We believe a Trump win could add $40-$50 per share to Tesla's stock," he wrote in a note.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gestures as he steps on stage during a rally for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York, October 27, 2024.
With a direct line to the White House, Musk may have a shot at clearing regulatory hurdles for autonomous robotaxis and getting Congress to approve a national standard for self-driving cars, business observers told USA TODAY.
Musk has feuded with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the use of driver assistance technology. The safety agency is investigating whether Tesla’s “full self-driving (supervised)” system was responsible for four collisions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
On election night, Trump also lauded the role Starlink satellites played in connecting people in hurricane-ravaged North Carolina.
A Falcon 9 lifts off Sept. 28 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying the astronauts of NASA/SpaceX Crew-9 to the International Space Station.
SpaceX is already a key contractor for NASA. Trump has publicly voiced support for Musk’s plans to send rockets to Mars by 2028. “We will land an American astronaut on Mars,” Trump said in October.
Among the other possible benefits for Musk, experts say: Decreased regulation could fuel the growth of XAi, Musk’s chatbot operator, and Neuralink, Musk’s brain implant company that was recently cleared by the Food and Drug Administration to run tests on humans.
“Elon Musk and a certain section of Silicon Valley are extremely concerned we overregulated this economy and there needs to be a radical change,” said James Pethokoukis, a senior fellow at the right-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute.
Musk has big plans for America PAC
Musk’s ambitions do not end there.
Musk is already touting what he claims is a record use of X, which could see its influence expand during a second Trump term.
With an estimated net worth of $264 billion, control of a major social media platform and 200 million followers who hang on his every meme, Musk is already planning to tap his personal brand and newfound political power to further the conservative political movement he has embraced.
“America PAC is going to keep going after this election,” Musk said on a livestream Tuesday as he headed to Palm Beach, Florida, on his private jet to watch returns with Trump and his family, pledging his super PAC would “aim to weigh in heavily” in future elections.
