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Former President Donald Trump is not shy about his contempt for electric vehicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Republican nominee\u2019s choice words for the industry are often extremely hyperbolic: He has said that electric cars will \u201ckill\u201d America\u2019s auto industry, and lead to an \u201cassassination\u201d of jobs.\u00a0 Electric car supporters are \u201cthugs,\u201d Trump declared in a post on Truth Social last Christmas. (\u201cMay they rot in hell,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. \u201cAgain, Merry Christmas!\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n President Joe Biden\u2019s EV promotion will lead to an auto industry \u201cbloodbath,\u201d Trump said during a March campaign rally. In the same speech, he claimed he would slap a \u201c100% tariff\u201d on electric vehicles made in Mexico but imported to the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not going to be able to sell those cars,\u201d he<\/a> said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two months later, Trump offered a deal <\/a>to oil executives: raise $1 billion for his re-election campaign, and he\u2019ll roll back all of Biden\u2019s \u201cridiculous\u201d electric vehicle-promoting policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n The oil executives balked at the deal\u2019s transactional nature. But, the CEO of Tesla<\/a>, the world\u2019s largest electric vehicle company, has reportedly<\/a> tapped on Trump\u2019s shoulder and offered a $180 million olive branch.\u00a0<\/p>\n What will Elon Musk receive in return for potentially the largest financial commitment in this election cycle?\u00a0<\/p>\n So far, slightly \u201cquieted\u201d rhetoric on electric vehicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cElon\u2019s out there funding SuperPACs and telling donors to give money to Trump, and so Trump, in his kind of calculating, says, \u2018Well, I better lay off the EV stuff,\u2019\u201d Michael Murphy, a Republican strategist and CEO of the EV Politics Project<\/a>, told<\/a> Fortune<\/em>. \u201cTrump is maybe turning the corner a little on the anti-EV rhetoric. And I\u2019ll give Elon credit for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s shift to the right<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal <\/em>reported Musk\u2019s $45 million-a-month commitment comes after years of a political shift for <\/a>the controlling shareholder of X, who is also co-founder of SpaceX<\/a> and Neuralink, and leader of a new venture, xAI. Tesla did not respond immediately to a request for comment. \u00a0<\/p>\n While Musk used to be a Democrat-leaning, mostly neutral centrist, he has increasingly criticized Biden on many topics, including immigration, DEI, and what he calls appeals to \u201cwokism.\u201d On his platform, X, formerly Twitter<\/a>, he frequently makes fun of the left, re-posting memes about pronouns, President Biden\u2019s age, and other thorns in Democrats\u2019 sides.\u00a0<\/p>\n The feelings are reciprocated: Musk is much less trusted and liked among Democrats, according to Shahar Silbershatz, the CEO of reputational management firm Caliber.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBased on our data from the Tech CEO study<\/a> we ran in December 2023, and on our ongoing reputation tracker of Tesla in the U.S.,\u201d Silbershatz told Fortune<\/em>, \u201c[Musk] gets a Trust & Like Score \u2026 of 63 among [Republicans], and 36 among [Democrats], on a 0-100 scale.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Mike Klimkosky, an EV expert who has long followed Musk, said Democrats are to blame for \u201cturning their backs\u201d on Musk.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey turned on him because they didn\u2019t like that he was one of the wealthiest people in the world,\u201d Klimkosky said. He added that Biden failed to support Musk\u2019s clean-energy efforts, even when they politically aligned with Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Musk\u2019s political ideology clearly began leaning right, he was vague on his stance on the 2024 presidential election until an assassination attempt<\/a> on the GOP nominee during a campaign rally Saturday. Minutes after the attempt, Musk endorsed Trump as one of the \u201ctoughest\u201d presidents and has since supported the candidate nearly non-stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet, as the CEO of an electric vehicle manufacturer\u2014the Tesla Model Y was the best-selling vehicle last year in progressive California\u2014Musk\u2019s stance could clash<\/a> with the political leanings of electric vehicle buyers, impacting sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI could see that the Tesla CMO is spending a lot of time down at Mulligan\u2019s bar, you know, having a drink, because it makes their job a lot harder,\u201d Murphy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n EV buyers may begin to reject Musk<\/strong><\/p>\n In the case of Tesla, Silbershatz wrote, liking a company and considering purchasing from it are two very different things.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile Republicans trusted and liked Tesla more than Democrats in December 2023, the consideration score \u2013 a measure of how willing one is to purchase a Tesla \u2013 was higher among Democrats (38% vs. 31% among Republicans),\u201d Silbershatz said. \u201cThis may be linked to the fact that Democrats are more favorably disposed to electric vehicles than Republicans in general.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Since Tesla\u2019s reputation is already quite polarized, its reputation might not change much in response to Musk\u2019s full-throttled support for Trump, according to Silbershatz. However, overall consideration rates (and, as a result, sales) will very likely suffer, since Democrats make up the greater share of EV buyers in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cConsidering that the competition is intensifying within the EV category in the US, and that already 33% of Americans say their next EV will be a foreign-made car (according to a Caliber study in June 2024) \u2013 this endorsement does not bode well for Tesla\u2019s commercial prospects,\u201d Silbershatz wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tesla may already have begun feeling the pain. According to data from CivicScience, a consumer analytics platform, Democrats\/Liberal favorability for Tesla has fallen to a low of 16% this month, compared to 39% in January. Among Republicans, Tesla\u2019s favorability remains unchanged, at a low-point of 22%.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the short run, due to the \u201csad reality\u201d of the politicization of EVs, this seems inevitable, Murphy said. But in the long run, Musk could become \u201cNixon to China.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe could be very helpful to open right-of-center Republican minds that have been getting his tribal messages from Trump and other politicians that EVs are double wagons,\u201d Murphy added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\nRecommended Newsletter:<\/strong> The Fortune Next to Lead newsletter is a must-read for the next generation of C-suite leaders. Every Monday, the newsletter provides the strategies, resources, and expert insight needed to claim the most coveted positions in business. Subscribe now<\/a>.<\/div>\n