The Tesla Secret That Exposes Elon Musk's Whole Game

https://newrepublic.com/article/192993/tesla-elon-musk-credits-money

Climate Homepage
J. Dylan Sandifer
March 21, 2025
mine, all mine!
The Tesla Secret That Exposes Elon Musk’s Whole Game
The car company’s big business in regulatory credits shows Musk’s mantra has always been “Government handouts for me, not for thee"

Tesla, the supposed future of clean energy, isn’t just making money by selling electric cars—it’s making a fortune off a regulatory loophole. In the first nine months of 2024, 43 percent of Tesla’s net income came from selling credits to other automakers that hadn’t met emissions standards. It’s not innovation that’s keeping Tesla’s finances afloat; it’s a rigged system that Musk is milking for everything it’s worth. And all the while, he’s using his newfound power as Trump’s unelected co-president to gut the very government programs that provide working people with a fraction of the support that he’s quietly pocketing.

Here’s how Tesla’s legalized scam works: Under California’s Zero Emission Vehicle, or ZEV, mandate and the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards, carmakers are required to meet emissions targets. If they don’t, they have to buy carbon credits from companies that produce cleaner vehicles. Tesla, which only sells electric cars, racks up a surplus of these credits and sells them to gas-guzzling automakers that don’t want to invest in real change.

Reagan may have invented the welfare queen to shame the poor, but it was always the rich that embodied it. The carbon credit scheme that bolsters Tesla’s finances perfectly exemplifies this larger pattern: a system that appears to promote environmental goals while primarily enriching those who know how to game it. While ordinary Americans struggle under inflation and stagnant wages, billionaires like Musk can transform regulatory requirements into profit centers. They build their fortunes on handouts while demanding that everyone else fend for themselves.