Liam Denning, Columnist

Tesla and Detroit’s Automakers Price In a Trump Joyride. Good Luck.

The narrative of tax cuts, deregulation and an engine-friendly White House papers over the damage from a U-turn on EV policy.

November 8, 2024 at 1:00 PM UTC

By Liam Denning

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

How might Elon Musk gain from a Trump White House?
Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North America

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Detroit voted overwhelmingly for Vice President Kamala Harris, but investors in “Detroit” backed President-elect Donald Trump. Shares in General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. jumped on news of Trump’s election win, with GM reaching a new high for the year and Ford up by almost 6% on Wednesday, more than double the S&P 500 Index’s gain. Meanwhile, in that other motor city, Austin, Tesla Inc. has added more than $100 billion to its already enormous market value.

The gains all look questionable, albeit for very different reasons when it comes to Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker.