Gov. Newsom sets himself up as a foil to Elon Musk and Donald Trump

27.11.2024 18:42

EastBayTimes.com

By Eliyahu Kamisher and Kara Carlson | Bloomberg

As Elon Musk prepares to wield more power in Washington, the state where he built his fortune is girding for a fight.

Gavin Newsom is positioning California as a foil to Donald Trump’s policies, laying the groundwork for resistance on everything from deportations to regulation rollbacks. On Monday, the Democrat governor delivered a plan that squarely touches on Musk’s Tesla Inc.: a rebate for electric-vehicle buyers if the president-elect repeals a federal subsidy.

Notably, the proposal includes market-share limitations that would leave out popular Tesla models.

The exclusion marks another turn in the fraught relationship between Newsom and Musk, a key member of Trump’s inner circle who has been tapped to co-lead an effort to slash federal spending. The governor’s office said the policy is designed so more carmakers can “take root” — that’s a blow for Tesla, a company started in Silicon Valley and nurtured by California’s climate goals and incentives.

Musk has made no secret of his disdain for deep-blue California and its policies. He relocated Tesla’s headquarters to Austin from Palo Alto in 2021 after clashing with Newsom over pandemic lockdowns.

In July, as his shift into Republican politics deepened, he announced that his companies X and SpaceX would also leave the state for Texas, saying the “final straw” was a new law signed by Newsom that bans school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents of changes to a student’s gender identity.

Yet just last year, Musk and Newsom struck a cooperative tone by announcing a Tesla global engineering headquarters in Palo Alto. The car company also maintains a huge presence with a factory in Fremont — a point Musk made in an X post Monday, calling Newsom’s policy “insane.”

“Think of the relationship between Newsom and Musk as love-hate, love-hate, love-hate-hate,” said Dan Schnur, a political analyst who teaches at University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley. “As Musk gets closer to Trump, he becomes a more lucrative political target for Newsom.”

Newsom, who’s widely seen as having presidential ambitions, is stepping up potential roadblocks to the Trump administration. He called a special legislative session to be held next week aimed at providing money for the state’s department of justice to potentially sue the administration or defend against federal lawsuits. He’s also touring Republican strongholds in the state, promoting his economic message and offering reassurances that their concerns are heard.

In a statement Monday, Newsom said California would be “doubling down” on its commitment to clean air and green jobs.

“We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future — we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute,” he said.

Details of the EV proposal — including Tesla’s possible omission from the credits — will be negotiated with the state legislature and could change, Newsom’s office said. Leading lawmakers haven’t indicated their support for the measure, especially as California faces challenging budget talks in the new year.

“We will review this proposal and all others as part of the larger budget negotiations,” the office of Mike McGuire, the senate president pro tempore, said in a statement. A representative for Robert Rivas, who heads the state assembly, didn’t return a request for comment.

Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman whose district includes Fremont, said it would be “foolish” to exclude Tesla. He alluded to President Joe Biden’s decision not to invite the company to a summit for EV makers early in his tenure — a move that rankled Musk and contributed to his contentious relationship with the administration.

“Let’s not play politics with keeping manufacturing in California,” Khanna said on X. “Have we learned nothing from snubbing @elonmusk at the Biden EV summit?”

Dominant Share

For Tesla, the limits on rebates would mean the company “will still be a big fish, but the pond will grow,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at Edmunds. She said it’s unclear why Tesla should be excluded.

“If the goal is ‘let’s sell more EVs,’ it seems a bit misdefined,” Caldwell said, pointing to Tesla’s significant market share and name recognition. The company made up 54.5% of all EVs registered in the state during the first three quarters of this year, down from 63% during the same period last year. Hyundai Motor Co. holds a distant second place with 5.6% share.

While its dominance has ebbed, Tesla still has enough market heft in California and the US to lessen the impact of purchase subsidies on its business. It’s also turned an adjusted profit every year since 2020, while the EV businesses of rivals such as Rivian Automotive Inc. and legacy carmakers including Ford Motor Co. continue to lose money.

As manufacturers introduce more EV models — including at lower price points — the market is beginning to open up to more buyers. California’s potential move could break Tesla’s longtime stranglehold on the market and boost smaller players that have struggled to break through.

Excluding Tesla from the state’s credit would be a “net negative” for the company, because doing so would put it at a disadvantage to fossil-fueled vehicles, RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan said in a note to clients.

“We do wonder how the governor’s office will justify such a policy,” he said, noting that the state has issued a mandate for all new cars to be zero-emissions by 2035.

Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California at Davis, said Tesla has less of a need for the buyer incentive than smaller carmakers. Yet he also said the company’s exclusion probably isn’t necessary to spur competition.

Schnur, the political consultant, said it’s hard not to see Newsom’s move as punitive.

“There is no evidence that the Newsom administration has penalized large-scale renewable energy companies in their previous efforts to get the state off of fossil fuels,” he said. “It is more than a little bit suspicious.”

–With assistance from Ryan Beene and Keith Laing.

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