Tesla (TSLA) Is Betraying U.S. Taxpayers and President Trump Won’t Like It

Tesla has reaped billions in U.S. taxpayer funds to expand its operations. Now, the electric vehicle maker has its sights set on China. | Image: AP Photo/Evan Vucci

• Tesla is making rapid progress in China and has already started delivering cars.
• After taking billions U.S. taxpayers, Tesla is looking to gradually move manufacturing to China.
• Moving jobs to China and paying taxes to the Chinese government won’t go over well with President Trump.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is off to a great start to the decade. The stock is making new all-time highs every day and currently sits at $469. With a market cap of over $84 billion, Elon Musk’s company has become the most valuable American automobile manufacturer ever.

This achievement is fascinating, considering that Tesla has never reported an annual profit in its 17-year existence and is highly unlikely to do so anytime soon.

Much of the appreciation in Tesla’s stock has come from the company’s progress in China. The speed with which Tesla built the multi-billion-dollar Gigafactory in Shanghai is commendable, and it has already started delivering cars in the area.

Although the Shanghai Gigafactory is just delivering cars in China, it could be a stepping stone to move the entire manufacturing process there.  Moving manufacturing to China would be a good business decision on Tesla’s part. But if you’re a taxpayer living in the U.S. who doesn’t own Tesla shares, you should feel betrayed.

Tesla has Mooched Off U.S. Tax Payers

The ‘clean energy’ business gets a lot of support from the government and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing is no exception. EV buyers get a federal tax credit of $7,500 that gets phased out as EV manufacturers sells 200,000 units. The credit reduces the upfront cost of EVs for the buyers.

EV manufacturers also gets various credits like  Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) that can be sold to auto companies that don’t make EVs.

U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for these freebies, and according to the LA Times, the government has spent almost $5 billion in subsidizing all of Elon Musk’s ventures. To make matters worse, Tesla has never paid any tax to the U.S. government. Since the EV-maker has never turned an annual profit, it hasn’t paid back any portion of the multi-billion-dollar subsidy.

Tesla Is Moving to China with a Tax Promise to the Chinese Government

As I said before, I think Tesla will soon try to move a lot of its production capacity to China. Elon Musk has already said that Tesla will be making more models in the Shanghai Gigafactory, and from a business perspective, it will be a good move for Tesla.

Since there are no labor laws, no excessive government intervention, cheap labor and real estate, moving jobs to China will reduce Tesla’s production cost.

The decision to move jobs to China won’t go over well with the Trump administration. Bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. and winning the trade war with China are pretty high on President Trump’s priority list. Seeing a company that has taken billions of dollars in subsidies from the U.S. government ship jobs to China won’t please President Trump, who already isn’t a fan on EVs.

To make matters worse, Tesla has also promised to pay the Chinese government $320 million per year in taxes. This promise will be seen by the Trump administration as a betrayal of U.S. taxpayers.

Angering the Trump administration is not something Elon Musk and Tesla can afford since the U.S. is still the company’s primary market. President Trump already delivered a deathblow to Tesla when he denied the extension of a federal tax credit. He can do more damage by banning the autopilot software, something that’s already gaining traction among U.S. politicians.

Elon Musk Tesla

Ayush Singh

Ayush is a financial blogger and a swing trader. He has roughly four years of experience covering the U.S. stock market and has consistently featured on Tip Ranks' list of top performing bloggers. He is based out of Indore, India and is also managing the portfolios of several local retail clients. You can email him on [email protected]

[email protected] @TraderBased