Tesla’s next four years could be decided during Election Day as voters make their way to the polls. Both Presidential candidates have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages in terms of what they could offer Tesla and the entire EV manufacturing sector as a whole within the next few years. However, it comes down to which candidate is more believable. We all know that politicians are a lot of talk and relatively abysmal amounts of what they say actually happens.
For starters, I am completely undecided about this year’s election. Personally, I wouldn’t say I like talking about politics because I feel that people get incredibly ugly when talking about this subject in particular. However, I also think it is essential as a writer who focuses on electric vehicles to highlight what each candidate could offer Tesla. It is not a cookie-cutter scenario here, and quite frankly, both candidates offer substantial benefits.
It seems that Donald Trump’s advantages lean more toward Tesla’s growth in the United States through manufacturing and job creation. Everyone knows “Make America Great Again” and how Trump wanted to recreate the American manufacturing surge that was so dominant in the 20th century. With Tesla planning Giga Texas and what seems to be a few more production plants in the United States within the next few years, there is a chance that Tesla could widely benefit from the views of the current president. While that may be a stretch for some, it is the truth.
FactCheck.com estimates that the Trump campaign has created 6,688,000 jobs so far through his term. That’s a lot of new employment opportunities for people. However, in terms of sustainability, Trump lost 62,000 jobs because of solar tariffs, which is a significant loss for the Earth-friendly energy sector, and it has been a needle in my side in terms of giving him my vote. You can’t say you’re going to create jobs, then lose 62,000 of them because of a Chinese tariff. On top of it, he’s a big supporter of “clean coal,” which isn’t real, because coal isn’t clean.
Additionally, I’m not wholly convinced that Trump would be a great benefactor to the movement of sustainable energy. While I know he’s supported Tesla and Musk in the past, and he also pushed for the Fremont facility to reopen amid the pandemic, which is arguable, there are a lot of jobs in Natural Gas, Coal, and Oil. They bring a lot of money in, and they create employment opportunities. However, they’re not great for the environment, and that’s something that I have a big problem with, personally.
This is a preview from our weekly newsletter. Each week I go ‘Beyond the News’ and handcraft a special edition that includes my thoughts on the biggest stories, why it matters, and how it could impact the future.
Biden, indeed, is the more environmentally-friendly choice between the two candidates. He has a laid-out plan for climate change, and he is a supporter of clean energy. One thing I like about him is that he is not denying that climate change is a threat to human existence, and I feel that whoever gets into office over the next two terms is going to have a real problem on their hands if they do not confront this issue head-on. I like that Biden has a specific plan to penalize the big polluters and hold them accountable for the environmental issues they have laid upon the Earth for revenue.
Biden also has a net-zero carbon goal by 2050, which many automotive companies have adopted in 2020. The big key with this is holding companies accountable and doing annual or even bi-annual check-ins to make sure they’re taking steps to work toward becoming cleaner.
Biden also has a plan to create 10 million clean energy jobs in the U.S. over the course of his term. This is an astounding number, but it will take a lot of work to create that many jobs in one sector in four years. So I have a little bit of trouble believing it.
One thing I found sort of humorous about Biden is the video clip he uploaded to Twitter in early August. While sitting in a Stingray, he says that EVs are the future of transportation and that he hopes they make an all-electric version of the Corvette variant. I found this sort of counterproductive, and I got a good chuckle out of it. Nothing says you love sustainability like sitting in a car that gets 12 MPG!
Either way the cookie crumbles in November, both candidates have their own advantages in terms of what they can do for EVs. Tesla being an American-based EV maker, holds to gain, or lose, the most from the election in terms of the potential of the sector in the coming years. Depending on who you ask, both candidates are the “best” for the job. Still, whichever party really ends up helping Tesla and sustainability could hold the Presidency for years to come, as environmentalism is growing and becoming a more critical issue every year.
A big thanks to our long-time supporters and new subscribers! Thank you.
I use this newsletter to share my thoughts on what is going on in the Tesla world. If you want to talk to me directly, you can email me or reach me on Twitter. I don’t bite, be sure to reach out!
Lifestyle
NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.
Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot
Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.
The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Texas ranch to showcase the lifelong work that changed the world
Elon Musk is building a product gallery at his Texas ranch spanning his lifelong inventions.
Elon Musk took to X earlier today, noting “Am putting together a product gallery at my ranch in Texas.” in response to a resurfaced famous quote from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s wherein he draw parallels of the Tesla CEO to legendary physicist Albert Einstein.
Dimon made the remark at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland back in January 2025, telling CNBC at the time, “SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, I mean, the guy is our Einstein.” The remark seemingly ended a long-time feud between the two high profile execs.
While details are thin about the exact location of Elon Musk’s Texas ranch and any pending projects that would serve as a gallery and homage to his portfolio of revolutionary product inventions spanning from 1984 to 2025, land acquisition records point to roughly a location of several thousand acres in Bastrop County, east of Austin near the Colorado River and held through an LLC called Horse Ranch LLC that’s managed by Musk’s longtime personal friend and family wealth manager Jared Birchall. Birchall also serves as the CEO of Neuralink.
Tesla’s “ecological paradise” in Giga Texas may be larger than expected
The broader Bastrop County footprint surrounding the ranch has grown significantly. Entities tied to Musk have accumulated approximately 2,000 acres in Bastrop County as of mid-2026, up from 700 acres earlier in the year, with possibly as much as 6,000 acres acquired in total across Bastrop and Travis counties based on deed records.
No completion date for the gallery has been announced and Musk has not confirmed whether it will be open to the public. As Teslarati has reported, SpaceX just completed the largest IPO in history raising $75 billion, a milestone that makes this particular moment in Musk’s career a natural inflection point for looking back at what he has built through the years.
Am putting together a product gallery at my ranch in Texas https://t.co/xQf5FRy4uz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2026
Starting with Blastar, a simple space shooter game Musk coded at 12 years old and sold to a South African magazine for $500. From there the timeline moves through a commercial career that started with Zip2 in 1995, a city guide software company sold to Compaq for roughly $300 million in 1999. That was followed by X.com in 1999, which merged with Confinity to become PayPal, acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. SpaceX came in 2002, Tesla in 2003, SolarCity in 2006, the Supercharger network in 2012, Neuralink in 2016, The Boring Company in 2016, OpenAI co-founded in 2015, X acquired in 2022, xAI in 2023, Optimus in 2024, the Cybercab in 2026, and most recently SpaceXAI following the SpaceX and xAI merger. The gallery will also likely include items that blur the line between product and cultural artifact, among them The Boring Company’s Not-a-Flamethrower from 2018, Tesla Short Shorts from 2020, and Burnt Hair perfume released under X in 2022.
Lifestyle
Tesla makes the cut on California’s newest EV Rebate program
California just signed a $270 million EV rebate into law and it starts this summer.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 168 into law on Monday, July 13, 2026, creating a $270 million EV rebate program that delivers money directly at the dealership rather than as a tax credit applied months later. The program, called MyFirstEV, is funded equally by California’s state budget and participating automakers, with each contributing $135.5 million to make the math work.
The timing is directly tied to the loss of federal support when the $7,500 federal EV tax credit ended, removing the most significant consumer incentive that had driven EV adoption in the U.S. California, which accounts for roughly one-third of all EVs sold nationally, moved to fill that gap with a state-level replacement.
The rebate structure is straightforward. First-time EV buyers can receive $3,500 off any new battery-electric vehicle with an MSRP up to $50,000. Used EVs priced at $25,000 or below qualify for a $1,750 rebate. The credit is applied at the point of sale, which removes the friction of the old federal system where buyers had to wait for tax season to see the benefit. The program goes live later this summer, with the California Air Resources Board expected to release full participation details next month.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
For Tesla buyers, the implications are mixed. The Tesla Model 3 RWD at $42,490 and the Model 3 Long Range at $47,490 both fall under the $50,000 cap and would qualify for the full $3,500 rebate for first-time buyers. The Model Y, which starts at $44,990 after Tesla’s recent price adjustment, also qualifies. The Model X, Model S, and Cybertruck all exceed the cap and receive no benefit. As Teslarati has reported, the program also includes a carve-out exempting California-based automakers like Rivian and Lucid from the price cap entirely, a provision that puts Tesla at a disadvantage since it relocated its headquarters to Texas in 2021.
Other qualifying vehicles include the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Volkswagen ID.4.
Elon Musk says your Tesla will start to learn your individual preferences
Ron DeSantis calls out media bias in Tesla crash coverage
