THE wealth of billionaire Tesla and X owner, Elon Musk, has soared by about $13 billion hours after his ally, Donald Trump, won the United States presidential election.
Early Wednesday, investors were already betting that Trump’s win will also be a win for Musk’s major public holding, Tesla (TSLA), sending shares of his electric vehicle maker up 13% at the market open, CNN reports.
The development lifted the value of the 411 million shares of Tesla that Musk owns outright by more than $13 billion, which works out to a better than a 11,000% return on the $119 million he donated to Trump.
No single business leader did more to support former President Donald Trump’s candidacy than Musk.
Musk has donated nearly $119 million so far to a political action committee he set up to support Trump, according to Federal Election Commission filings. He has also appeared with Trump at rallies and hosted a fawning interview with him on X, his social media platform.
“He’s bet big here. He dove into the deep end of the pool on this election,” said Daniel Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities.
Much of Musk’s massive net worth can be traced to the government support his companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX, have received over the years. Even if Vice President Kamala Harris had won, much of that money would have continued to flow.
But even if some of the government support for electric vehicles is now trimmed or cut off, as is likely with Trump’s victory, Musk’s wealth will remain firmly intact. In fact, Tesla could benefit if government support for EVs ends.
Musk posted numerous tweets on his social media platform X late Tuesday and early Wednesday celebrating Trump’s victory.
“The people of America gave @realDonaldTrump a crystal clear mandate for change tonight,” he wrote in one of them.
But Trump’s victory could be negative to Musk’s investment, too. Trump has been openly hostile to electric vehicles, saying they are too expensive, have limited range, and will destroy jobs and the American auto industry. But what might seem like the biggest blow to Tesla from another Trump presidency — a reduction, if not the end of federal support for EVs — might not be all that bad for Tesla and Musk.
Other policies that are the centre of Trump’s plans could cause major problems.
Trump has vowed to end something he calls “Biden’s EV mandate,” even though no such mandate exists, and it is unclear what he is referring to.
But under Biden there has been significant government support for building and buying EVs, including billions of dollars in loans to encourage automakers to invest in factories to build EVs and batteries in the United States, support for charging stations and a $7,500 tax credit to many electric car buyers.