The Biden administration treated EV giant Tesla Inc. TSLA fairly on certain issues despite “surface-level disappointment” between the President and company CEO Elon Musk, according to former company executive Rohan Patel.
What Happened: The Biden administration included Tesla in the $7500 consumer incentive it was left out of for the entire Trump administration and also allowed the continued deployment of the company’s driver assistance systems despite bipartisan criticism, Patel said.
The administration enacted a new stationary storage incentive that helped Megapack deployments in the U.S. while also passing strong manufacturing incentives for battery cells and materials, Patel added.
“No doubt Biden is very biased towards unions and appoints pro-Union people to the nlrb making it easier to organize. But it didn't often create substantive problems, and instead was more of a PR and surface-level disappointment,” Patel wrote on X while adding that it is just his personal view. Patel was Tesla's vice president of global public policy and business development until April earlier this year.
Why It Matters: Patel’s opinion of the Biden administration aiding Tesla comes on the heels of Musk endorsing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump despite the latter seeking elimination of subsidies for electric vehicles.
However, Musk said during the company’s second-quarter earnings last week that the impact of the elimination of subsidies would only be slight for Tesla but devastating for its competitors.
The elimination of EV subsidies would probably help Tesla in the long term, he added.
The CEO, however, also said that the company is postponing plans for a gigafactory in Mexico due to concerns about potential heavy tariffs on vehicles produced in the neighboring country if Trump is re-elected.
‘Surface-Level Disappointment’: Musk and Biden have a strained relationship. The billionaire entrepreneur slammed the President over the weekend alleging that he is controlled by the United Auto Workers union and would rather have Tesla dead if not unionized.
Tesla and its CEO are both staunchly against unions. "UAW slogan – "Fighting for the right to embezzle money from auto workers!" Musk wrote on X in March 2022, mocking the union which has over 400,000 active members.
Musk has also previously voiced disagreements with Biden not acknowledging him and his company’s achievements in EV production but instead crediting players like Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis despite them lagging far behind Tesla in EV sales. The CEO has also slammed the Democratic party’s policies on immigration, among others.
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Photo: Musk: Daniel Oberhaus via Flickr; Biden: David Lienemann via the White House
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