Big Tech and Trump: What happens when business and politics get involved?

Major U.S. tech companies are striving to strengthen ties with the administration of President Donald Trump. But these political manoeuvres have sparked reactions, raised ethical concerns, and even led to commercial disruptions. From direct political backing to policy changes influenced by Trump’'s agenda, industry leaders are facing increased scrutiny and, in some cases, a drop in sales. “ technology stocks saw their strongest sales in three years on Monday amid fears of shrinking profit margins due to rising import costs and shifting consumer confidence in key international markets.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is one of the most prominent supporters of US President Trump’; He donates millions to the presidential campaign and leads the administration's dismissal initiative, DOGE’. But Musk’'s political upheavals triggered widespread reactions and affected many of his businesses. Tesla sales are falling in numerous markets, and analysts associate this with Musk’'s controversial rhetoric. Meanwhile, Musk’'s SpaceX’i is losing a $100 million (€91.6 million) deal with Ontario for Starlink services due to Trump’'s tariffs on Canadian products. Prime Minister Doug Ford said “Ontario will not do business with people who are determined to destroy our economy.

Musk’'s support for ’'s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party may also have negatively affected Tesla’'s European sales. German Federal Motor Transport AuthorityAccording to ’, GermanyGeneral electric vehicle registrations in ’ %Tesla’'s car registrations increased by 31 in February is down. Sales in other European markets also suffered last month, Reuters’in reported; Tesla deliveries Portugal’de and France’da is down.

China’de Tesla faces regulatory negativity as trade tensions with the United States increase. While the company has not yet received approval for autonomous driving technology, its Chinese biggest competitor, BYD’, is likely to catch Beijing’'s eye, especially with China’ adopting the DeepSeek’'s artificial intelligence model as it prioritizes domestic demand.

Among the Magnificent Seven stocks, the low performance of Tesla’'s share price illustrates the potential risks of business and politics intermingling. The share price of the electric car maker has been on a bumpy trajectory since November last year; Trump's mid-December summit after nearly doubling since ’'s victory in the U.S. election is down.

Verification in Meta’

Musk is not the only entrepreneur trying to improve relations with President Donald Trump. Meta ended its third-party verification program in January and reintroduced political content, including previously restricted topics such as immigration and gender. Meta also donated $1 million (€916,000) to Trump’'s inauguration ceremony, contributing contributions from firms such as Amazon and OpenAI CEO ’ Sam Altman.

Meta’'s social apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, have long faced controversy over the spread of misinformation on politically sensitive topics. In 2016, Facebook was widely criticized for facilitating the dissemination of misinformation during Trump’'s first presidential campaign and contributing to the creation of information verification policies in subsequent years. The integration of AI into content control is now expected to bring more ethical and legal layers to this debate.

Mark Zuckerberg ’'s efforts to influence the new US administration also point to a change of direction. Meta Platforms previously suspended Trump’'s Facebook and Instagram accounts for two years in the wake of the Capitol riot in ’ on January 6, 2021. Trump has described Facebook ’ as “'s enemy.

Alphabet and Washington Post face employee review

Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet’, also sparked outrage when Google Maps ’da “ renamed the Gulf of Mexico ”ni “ the Gulf of America ”. This came in response to Trump’'s executive order calling for the renaming of the body of water. In addition, Alphabet’'s decision to abandon its policy banning the use of artificial intelligence for military applications has sparked serious ethical concerns, triggering widespread resignations and employee-initiated petitions against this change.

Meanwhile, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon’, has faced criticism for changes in the newspaper's editorial stance. The opinion section of the publication now focuses on opinions that support “'s personal freedoms and the free market, but articles opposing this stance are not published. Bezos also blocked the paper's plans to support Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’i for the 2024 presidential election. These actions led to resignations within the company and a decline in subscriptions.

Investors believe Musk and Tesla’ will make a fortune under the Trump administration

For Elon Musk fans, this is a half-trillion-dollar bet. Tesla’'s stock market value has skyrocketed this much since the presidential election; Despite a disappointing financial report, a dizzying rise in recent days that could sink shares of nearly all other companies has continued unabated.

Investors are betting that President Donald Trump will help rather than damage Musk’'s company with plans to undermine Washington regulations and impose tariffs to get what he wants with key trading partners.

Less editing? Oh, it's fantastic. A trade war? It doesn't matter.

Dan Ives, financial analyst at Wedbush Securities, said it will be a golden age for “Tesla and Musk. “This is a rise I've heard so far about Musk.”

Investing in Tesla’ has long been a gamble. Musk was against the possibility of ’ establishing a successful electric car company; Apart from making him the most valuable car manufacturer in the world and making him the richest man in the world in the process, let alone growing him. But this last bet seems particularly risky.

Musk says the company's true value likely lies in the future of thousands of Tesla robots and unsupervised, driverless vehicles by the end of the year. In an investor conference call, Tesla’ promised to begin offering such robotics in June in Austin, Texas, ’, and nationwide by the end of next year.

It will be Trump who hastens all this, giving Musk’a an office in the White House, and putting him in charge of the new Department of Government Productivity, ’, tasked with reducing the size of the government, or so the story goes.

Trump’'s new transport minister, who could have a big impact on Tesla, mostly sticks to the script. In addition to cutting overregulation on automakers, Sean Duffy has pledged to replace the state-by-state patchwork Musk’ blew up because it hampered development with a single set of federal rules on autonomous driving technology.

Perhaps more importantly, Trump has softened his stance on China’, a major market for Tesla, and has threatened the country during its election campaign since Saturday. %Not with an additional customs duty of 60’, %He struck with additional taxes of 10’. Nevertheless, Trump’'s decision to impose tariffs on China’, as well as Canada and Mexico’, should affect Tesla’. Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said last week that the company should feel that its business will be affected as it supplies parts from around the world.

Trump also promised to do other things that would hurt Musk’'s business.

Tesla supplies most of its parts from abroad, and therefore Trump’'s Canada and Mexico’ya %The decision to impose a 25-’ tariff will have a severe impact on the company if it continues to do so.

Trump also promised to eliminate the federal tax cut designed to get people to buy electric vehicles. It will also reduce emissions standards; This will be a potential blow to Tesla’'s business of selling “-regulatory loans to car manufacturers that are polluting the environment further and cannot meet the requirements. Tesla sold $692 million of these loans in the last three months of 2024’; This is according to the previous year. ’ means an increase; Almost all of the revenue flows directly into Tesla’'s bottom line.

It's also unclear whether the Trump administration will delay investigations into Tesla’ya, specifically the technology the company calls Fully Automated Driving. This is a misnomer due to the fact that vehicles need human intervention at any moment. In October, the transport department's car safety regulator, the National Traffic Road Safety Administration, launched the latest in a variety of research into the technology after receiving reports of accidents in low visibility conditions, including a pedestrian death.

Transportation Minister Duffy promised senators at a hearing earlier this month that he would allow Tesla investigations to follow the facts; In particular, the president's “ promised to oppose any political pressure to be lenient with the person identified as his first friend, ”.

Musk’ will need all the regulatory help and other goodies it can get from Trump’.

In early January, Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen and China said sales fell in 2024’te as competitors such as ’in BYD’si emerged with competitive EV’s and stole market share, a first in more than a dozen years.

Then on Wednesday, Tesla reported that revenue, profit and other key financial health metrics for the last quarter of 2024’ all fell short of what analysts expected. The stock went up anyway.

Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein, of “, says things that would harm other automakers don't seem to affect Tesla’.

In addition to business, Tesla shareholders should always keep an eye on CEO ’. Recently, this has meant evaluating Musk’'s entry into politics.

A major market for his cars, Europe’da Musk supported the far-right Alternative for Germany ’, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described ’ as “, an evil tyrant who ruled ”, a brutal police state.

On the day of his inauguration in ’, Musk made a straight arm gesture during a speech that many interpreted as a Nazi salute. He ridiculed the criticism, but the reaction was still violent. In ’, Germany, the image of Musk’ saluting was projected onto the huge Tesla factory outside Berlin in protest. ItalyA communist youth group in ’ hung a statue of Musk’ upside down on the same square in Milano’, where fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’ was also hanged upside down.

How many of these Tesla buyers agree with Musk“?’ Auto researcher Jato Dynamics” senior analyst Felipe Munoz said: “I don't see the point in alienating potential customers.”

Musk is also at risk of shutting down regulatory agencies, which he hopes will soon approve the use of the European ’'s Fully Automated Driving system.

If investors start to lose faith in Musk’a, it's a long way off.

The increase in Tesla shares alone since the elections is more than the annual economic output of 160 countries. Tesla’'s total market capitalization reached nearly $1.3 trillion; This is more than the total value of General Motors, BMW, Ford, Ferrari, Porsche and a dozen other leading car manufacturers.

Musk thinks the stock should be higher.

On Wednesday, before I further highlight this statement, I see a way to make “Tesla’ the most valuable company in the world by far, not even close to – said. There is a way in which “Tesla’ is worth more than the next five companies combined.”

This means leaving companies like Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia behind. Tesla is currently the seventh most valuable company in the S&P 500’.

“Golden Age” analyst Wedbush’tan Ives agrees that stocks can only rise from here.

“Musk’'s centuries-old bet was on Trump’, ” said. “Musk’ will have a huge impact on deregulation on the ring road, and it's worth a trillion dollars.”

New Chinese step from Tesla ⁇

Tesla plans to launch an advanced driver assistance system called Fully Autonomous Driving (FSD) technology in China and Europe in the first quarter of next year, if approved by authorities.

Tesla AI ⁇ 's official X account released a roadmap on Thursday, outlining upcoming technology launches.

The company, which is working on new technologies to increase sales and stay ahead of Chinese competitors working on similar driver assistance systems, is currently in the process of obtaining permission from regional authorities.

Tesla has made great progress in getting approval for the Chinese market after passing data security assessments and reaching a mapping and navigation agreement with technology giant Baidu. The company also received permission to test FSD technology on the streets of Shanghai.

CEO Elon Musk attributes Tesla's future to solving autonomy.

Despite the name of the technology, Tesla and industry experts emphasize that drivers should keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road when using the software.

Musk said at a revenue meeting in July that he expects the FSD drive system to be approved in Europe, China and other countries by the end of the year. He also stated in April that it would soon be possible to roll out FSD technology via platform X in China.

In China, Tesla's largest overseas market, there are many competing brands that have narrowed their market share and developed their own driver assistance technologies. In this competitive environment, the approval of FSD ⁇ may contribute to Tesla ⁇ 's maintenance of its leadership in Çin ⁇ . According to data from the China Passenger Car Association, Tesla ⁇ 's shipments to China in the first eight months of this year decreased by about 6 percent compared to last year.