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Trump’s tariffs: here’s what they mean for Tesla and the auto industry

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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.

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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.

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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.

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“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?”

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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.

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“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.

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  • 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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Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

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Elon Musk

The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville

The Boring Company’s Prufrock MB2 is commissioned and ready to mine beneath Nashville’s streets.

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The Boring Company’s second tunnel boring machine, Prufrock MB2, is officially ready to dig in Nashville. The company confirmed the news on X, posting: “Prufrock-MB2 is ready to mine in Nashville! MB2 commissioning is complete, including the brief 11 rpm rotation shown here. Will MB2 catch up to MB1, who had quite the head start? And Prufrock-MB3 ships in August!”

MB2 arrives with meaningful improvements over its predecessor. Lessons learned from the launch and operation of MB1 have already been applied to MB2 to improve efficiency and prepare the machine for launch.

Traditional tunnel boring machines operate in a stop-and-go cycle, digging roughly five feet, halt, erect precast concrete segments to line the tunnel wall, then resume. That repeated interruption is one of the main reasons conventional tunneling is slow and expensive. Prufrock is designed to install the tunnel liner simultaneously with mining, eliminating the need to stop every five feet. The machine also skips the need for excavated launch pits. Prufrock arrives on a truck, tilts down, and launches into the ground within 24 hours. And when the tunnel is complete, it emerges from the ground and drives to its next launch site on a trailer, eliminating the need for expensive cranes or pit excavation. The machine is also fully electric and runs with zero people in the tunnel during normal operations, controlled remotely from a surface operations center.

It won’t be long before we hear of another major update on The Boring Company’s Music City Loop project – a planned underground transit network beneath Nashville that would move passengers in electric vehicles through a series of tunnels at highway speeds, and bypassing surface traffic entirely. Nashville was selected in part because of its strong rock conditions that suits the Prufrock machines well, and relatively less regulatory hurdles.

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Progress has been steady on multiple fronts. All 37 permits and approvals required ahead of tunneling have been obtained, out of 45 total. Key wins include a fully executed TDOT tunnel permit authorizing 25 miles of tunnel, unanimous airport authority approval for a Nashville International Airport station, and the city’s first residential station agreement serving downtown tower residents.

With MB1 already tunneling, MB2 now commissioned, and MB3 shipping in August, Nashville is becoming something of a live proving ground for scaled tunnel boring. The broader ambition is not limited to one city. The Boring Company’s stated goal is to make underground transportation a practical alternative to surface roads across major metro areas. Nashville is one of many cities, including a successful Las Vegas tunnel system, where that idea is being put to the test at real speed.

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Elon Musk just put a $1 Trillion revenue number on SpaceX

SpaceX surged 19% on its first trading day as Musk projected $1 trillion revenue by 2030.

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Rendering of a colonized Mars by way of SpaceX

Just days after SpaceX stock pushed its market cap past $2 trillion on its first trading session, closing at $160.95, a 19% gain on the $135 IPO price, Elon Musk posted his own revenue projection on X that went well beyond anything Wall Street modeled. “I think SpaceX might be able to reach approximately $1T revenue in 2030,” Musk wrote, then followed up: “And I would be surprised if revenue is not greater than $1T in 2031.” That forecast sits roughly three times above the most bullish institutional estimate on the table.

Morgan Stanley, one of the lead underwriters, projects SpaceX revenue of $160 billion in 2028, $330 billion in 2030, and $3.4 trillion by 2040, with adjusted EBITDA projected to exceed $2.7 trillion at that point. Reaching those numbers from SpaceX’s $18.7 billion in 2025 revenue requires a compound annual growth rate of roughly 42%, which would outpace even Amazon’s fastest growth era. Morgan Stanley’s model places AI infrastructure as the heaviest revenue driver, projecting $190 billion from SpaceX’s AI business alone by 2030. That figure is anchored to xAI’s Grok platform and the Colossus supercomputer following the earlier merger.

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The government revenue pipeline provides a more predictable foundation under those projections. As we have previously reported, SpaceX holds at least $22 billion in cumulative federal contracts across NASA, the Space Force, the NRO, and the Space Development Agency, with 52 active contracts carrying $11.8 billion in remaining value. The NASA Artemis Human Landing System contract alone is valued at $4.04 billion, covering a second crewed lunar landing demonstration targeted for the Artemis IV mission. SpaceX is also a frontrunner for the Golden Dome missile defense shield, and the FAA has approved up to 44 Starship launches from LC-39A in 2026, setting the stage for Starship to become the backbone of both commercial and government heavy lift. Whether Musk’s $1 trillion number proves visionary or simply optimistic, the infrastructure to get there is already being funded.

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SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know

SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.

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SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.

At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.

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The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”

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