Although Tesla CEO Elon Musk shocked Silicon Valley by breaking ranks to become an official member of the White House Manufacturing Jobs Initiative, the value of his Tesla stock is up by over $2 billion since the election of Donald Trump as President.
After a dizzying week of executive orders covering Obamacare, trade and immigration, President Trump held an approval rating of 55 percent of likely voters according to the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. That is only slightly below the 59 percent level of President Obama when he left office.
Voters welcomed President Trump’s decision to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) mega-trade deal and agree that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada needs to be reworked. Although supporters argue free trade makes products cheaper for U.S. consumers, Americans believe — by a whopping 73 percent to 16 percent margin — it is more important to keep manufacturing jobs in the United States than keep prices low for U.S. consumers. Americans strongly believe in buying U.S. made goods.
To emphasize which way the nation is moving, the White House announced the creation of a 28-member Manufacturing Jobs Initiative to develop the “how best to promote job growth and get Americans back to work again.” Participants include a number of Fortune 100 CEOs; the AFL-CIO Deputy Chief of Staff, representing labor unions; plus Elon Musk, Intel’s Brian Krzanich, and Michael Dell to represent high-tech.
Breitbart News reported earlier this week that Musk suffered huge Silicon Valley blow-back after he lit up the blogosphere by tweeting that former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson “has the potential to be an excellent Sec of State.” The left’s social justice warriors lashed out at Musk with vicious colorful language that cannot be reported. Rumors also flew that Musk was a sell-out to support Trump in exchange for a carbon tax.
Musk’s showing up on an official White House committee on January 27 generated another Twitter storm. But the latest comments were more mournful: “dude, what are you doing? You are losing #credibility by the minute. Come back to the #light !”.
Musk replied, “Yeah, am hearing this from a lot of people & it’s getting me down. I’m just trying to make a positive contribution & hope good comes of it.”
But when it comes to U.S. employment and manufacturing, Musk’s companies are near or at the top as the fastest-growing players. From a base of just 899 Tesla employees in 2010, Tesla now has roughly 25,000 U.S. workers; Hawthorne-based SpaceX has 4,000 U.S. employees; Reno-based Gigafactory expects to hire 6,500 American workers when completed; and his development stage Hyperloop One has 200 employees.
The Trump / Musk charm offensive has been a home run for Tesla. With analysts at Morgan Stanley and other Wall Street firms applauding the effort, Tesla’s stock price is up by 33 percent since the November 8 elections.
Before Donald Trump became President, Musk already had amassed a $13.2 billion net worth. The biggest piece of his fortune are the 33.73 million Tesla shares and vested options exercisable within 60 days that amount to a 22.5 percent ownership stake in the company.
Since November 8, Musk’s net worth from Tesla alone is up by a stunning $2,028,000,000, or over $2 billion rounded off.
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