How Elon Musk Broke With Biden and the Democrats

Elon Musk’s embrace of Donald Trump can be traced in part to a snub by President Biden.

In early 2021, the new Biden administration began making plans to implement its campaign promises to boost electric vehicles.

At the time, Musk’s Tesla produced about two-thirds of the EVs on U.S. roads. But Tesla is also the only major U.S. car manufacturer that doesn’t have unionized factory workers, and some of its labor practices were under scrutiny by federal regulators. Tesla officials reached out to the White House multiple times after the inauguration, hoping to connect Biden and Musk, according to people familiar with the matter. The Tesla boss, who said in a television interview that he voted for Biden—and has said he voted exclusively for Democrats until a few years ago—repeatedly got the cold shoulder.

The reason: Biden officials didn’t want to anger the powerful United Auto Workers union, which leaned on the White House to keep its distance from Musk, according to people familiar with the matter.

Then in August 2021, Biden organized an EV event, to be anchored by him signing an executive order with a target to make half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 zero-emissions vehicles.