U.S. President Donald Trump formally launched tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China over the weekend, a decision that is widely expected to have sweeping implications for Tesla, other automakers, and a broad range of other industries.
The Trump administration announced the news on Saturday, effectively establishing a 25-percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports as well as a 10-percent tariff on products from China. The tariffs will go into effect on Tuesday, and they have already caused ripple effects and a larger trade war with some of the companies.
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke on the phone over the weekend, and while Sheinbaum hasn’t yet formalized or disclosed plans for counter-tariffs, Trudeau announced some on Saturday evening, according to Reuters. In the announcement, the Prime Minister said that Canada with also establish a 25-percent tariff on $155 billion worth of products from the U.S.
Trudeau has said that the government will release an updated list of products and tariff details, though the initial list included products such as certain appliances, beer, wine, lumber and other goods. He also says that the government plans to start with $30 billion on Tuesday, as followed by the additional $125 billion later this month.
The Trump administration says the tariffs are aimed at “addressing an emergency situation” related to the import of illegal drugs including fentanyl, along with pointing the blame at illegal immigrants.
“President Trump is taking bold action to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country,” the White House writes on its fact sheet dedicated to the order.
You can see the full fact sheet from the White House here, or check out the full executive order here.
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On Sunday, Trump also followed up with a post on his Truth Social account in response to criticism:
The USA has major deficits with Canada, Mexico, and China (and almost all countries!), owes 36 Trillion Dollars, and we’re not going to be the “Stupid Country” any longer. MAKE YOUR PRODUCT IN THE USA AND THERE ARE NO TARIFFS! Why should the United States lose TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN SUBSIDIZING OTHER COUNTRIES, and why should these other countries pay a small fraction of the cost of what USA citizens pay for Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, as an example? THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.
Following a repost of Trump’s words on X, community notes pointed to a TD Economics saying that the U.S. has had a trade surplus with Canada for the last sixteen years straight when not including the energy sector, or oil, natural gas and electricity.
Multiple others have weighed in on how the tariffs could affect the industry at large, highlighting the potential for price increases for the consumer, potential layoffs, and some even saying that it will shut the auto industry down altogether.
In a report from Bloomberg on Sunday, Flavio Volpe, the President of the Canada Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said that he doesn’t think the country’s auto parts makers will be able to remain profitable with the tariffs in place.
“The auto sector is going to shut down within a week,” Volpe said. “At 25 percent, absolutely nobody in our business is profitable by a long shot.”
Others have warned of even more immediate effects, especially for Canadian and Mexican cities and states whose communities rely heavily on automotive manufacturing. One such city includes Windsor, Ontario, where John D’Agnolo, the union president of a local Ford factory there, says substantial numbers of layoffs could be imminent.
“We’re talking about thousands and thousands of jobs being lost,” D’Agnolo said. “We’d truly be a ghost town, here in Windsor, if we lost this type of business.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has also warned that it could affect as many as 500,000 jobs across the province, which is Canada’s most populated, with many of those being automotive roles.
Many also expect the increased costs to be passed onto the consumer, though it’s still unclear exactly what the repercussions of the tariffs could be. We could also see businesses absorb some or all of these costs, though some initial research seems to suggest that buyers will see higher sticker prices across the industry.
“It is going to be a lot of impact,” Aruna Anand, chief executive officer of parts supplier Continental AG’s North American business, said in an interview. “The question is who is absorbing the price and it becomes, are we able to absorb that price or is it going to be shifted to the end consumer?”
In a separate report from Reuters on Saturday, it was suggested that automakers such as General Motors (GM) and Toyota could, however, shift more production from overseas factories to those in the U.S., while major aluminum manufacturer Alcoa is considering re-routing plans that could potentially reduce tariffs. Many electric vehicle (EV) battery materials also come from metal mining operations in China, with some of these sectors just beginning to emerge domestically.
Others also report that the move could “undermine competitiveness” in the American auto industry, ultimately increasing the cost of building cars in the U.S.
“Our American automakers … should not have their competitiveness undermined by tariffs that will raise the cost of building vehicles in the United States and stymie investment in the American workforce,” says Matt Blunt, the President of the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents Stellantis, GM and Ford.
During Tesla’s Q4 earnings call last week, Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja also warned that tariffs could affect profitability for the company, since its all of its production facilities utilize parts from around the globe.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty around tariffs,” Taneja said. “Over the years, we’ve tried to localize our supply chain in every market, but we are still very reliant on parts from across the world for all our businesses. Therefore, the imposition of tariffs, which is very likely, will have an impact on our business and profitability.”
It’s still not quite clear at this time how the tariffs may affect Tesla’s prices. While Tesla has regularly advertised having the “most American-made cars” with final assembly for the market taking place at its factories in Texas and California, the company also gets a significant amount of components from Canada.
In a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in October, Tesla did disclose what percentage of its vehicle parts are made in either Canada or the U.S., as compared to other countries such as Mexico and Japan. Some of the figures also don’t disclose where the remaining amounts come from, though they can give users an idea of how many components come from Mexico compared to either the U.S. or Canada.
You can see that data for Tesla’s vehicles below, though it’s also worth noting that it does not show the ratio of U.S. to Canadian parts—just a combined percentage from the two countries. You can also view the full filing from the NHTSA here.
- Cybertruck: 65 percent from U.S. and Canada; 25 percent from Mexico
- Model 3 Long Range: 75 percent from U.S. and Canada; 20 percent from Mexico
- Model 3 Performance: 70 percent from U.S. and Canada; 20 percent from Mexico
- Model Y (all trims): 70 percent from U.S. and Canada; 25 percent from Mexico
- Model S: 65 percent from U.S. and Canada; 20 percent from Mexico
- Model X: 60 percent from U.S. and Canada; 25 percent from Mexico
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
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Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
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The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.
Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.
But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.
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Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:
“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”
Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.
Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”
Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value.
The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power and mass to space.
And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow.
But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2026
Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.
Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.
What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning
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Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
