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    • What Trump’s election victory means for Tesla billionaire Elon Musk
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    What Trump’s election victory means for Tesla billionaire Elon Musk

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    Elon Musk, who has spent more than $100 million and turned his social media platform X into an online megaphone to generate votes for Donald Trump, has emerged as one of the biggest winners of the presidential election.

    The world’s richest man was the only Fortune 100 CEO to take sides and support Trump shortly after the July assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

    In the final weeks of the campaign, Musk pulled out all the stops, hosting town halls in the battleground state of Pennsylvania and handing out $1 million checks to swing-state voters.

    While working with other wealthy donors at Mar-a-Lago as Trump rode a red wave to success, Musk tweeted a photo of a SpaceX rocket launch: “The future will be fantastic.”

    Will Musk’s election efforts pay off?

    Trump made it clear in his victory speech that Musk will have an ally in the White House. “A star is born,” Trump said of the technology billionaire.

    That star power could give Musk significant influence 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 is common for presidents to tap business leaders for a prominent role in their administration. But Musk’s reach could be unprecedented, says 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 would have just won all five golden tickets,” Schnur said. “Trump not only respects him, he not only reveres him, but Trump feels like he owes him something. Add that together and it’s hard to imagine Musk writing a wish list that Trump won’t put his stamp on.”

    Musk can play a major role in Trump’s White House

    Trump has promised to give Musk an official role in his administration to reduce government spending, which he calls the “secretary of cost savings.” Musk has joked that he will lead a “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, referring to the cryptocurrency he favors.

    Musk tweeted that he was excited to work with Trump on a commission to cut government spending. He boasted that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, but offered no details on how.

    In addition, Musk could have a say in choosing 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’s Ross School of Business of Michigan.

    Regarding a parody meme of Musk holding a ceramic sink in the Oval Office — a nod to the time he carried a real sink to Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters after acquiring the company — Musk wrote: “Let that sink in .”

    Gita Johar, a professor at Columbia Business School in New York, said she has never seen such an “explicit quid pro quo.”

    “I think it could be a very cozy arrangement that would benefit Musk,” Johar said.

    That Musk may have the power to shape agencies he has criticized in the past could be problematic, according to Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

    “It’s one thing to include business leaders on an advisory committee,” Clark said. ‘But the chairman of any efficiency committee should put the public interest first. That would be impossible for Elon Musk, when Elon Musk has so many controversial interactions with federal government agencies.”

    What Trump wins means for Tesla, SpaceX

    Shares of Tesla rose Wednesday as investors bet that Trump’s return to the White House will boost the electric car maker.

    Trump, who has expressed disdain for electric vehicles and President Joe Biden’s EV tax breaks, signaled a shift after Musk’s endorsement. “I am for electric cars. It has to be, you know, because Elon supported me very strongly,” Trump said at a rally in August. “So I have no choice.”

    Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives estimated that Tesla could see a market cap increase of more than $100 billion. Eliminating subsidies would harm Tesla less than other EV manufacturers.

    “We believe a Trump victory could add $40-$50 per share to Tesla stock,” he wrote in a note.

    With a direct line to the White House, Musk could 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 “fully self-driving (supervised)” system was responsible for four collisions, including one that killed a pedestrian.

    On election night, Trump also touted the role Starlink satellites played in connecting people in hurricane-ravaged North Carolina.

    SpaceX is already a major contractor for NASA. Trump has publicly expressed 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 potential benefits for Musk, experts say: Less regulation could boost the growth of XAi, Musk’s chatbot operator, and Neuralink, Musk’s brain implant company that was recently approved by the FDA to conduct tests on humans.

    “Elon Musk and a certain segment of Silicon Valley are extremely concerned that we have over-regulated this economy and that radical change is needed,” said James Pethokoukis, a senior fellow at the right-wing think tank American Enterprise Institute.

    Musk has big plans for America PAC

    Musk’s ambitions don’t stop there.

    Musk is already touting what he claims is X’s record use, which could increase his influence during a second Trump term.

    With an estimated net worth of $264 billion, control of a major social media platform and 200 million followers hanging on to every one of his memes, Musk is already planning to tap his personal brand and newfound political power to fuel the conservative political movement he has embraced to promote.

    “America PAC will continue after this election,” Musk said during a livestream Tuesday as he headed to Palm Beach on his private jet to watch the returns with Trump and his family, promising that his super PAC would want to “weigh heavily” in future elections.

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