Elon Musk’s drift to the right has been startling to watch for some time now. Ditto his cosying up to president-elect Donald Trump. For the vainglorious entrepreneur, the writing – that being his 

 ascent – might have already been on the wall ahead of Trump’s triumph, especially as he helped put it there (and Trump back in the White House).

’s role within US government circles has been assured for some time now, largely due to his space tourism company Space X’s ongoing contracts with NASA, as well as his Starlink satellites that have provided invaluable support to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

When it comes to Trump specifically, Musk’s takeover of Twitter – now X – led to an open invite for the 78-year-old to return, as well as a promise not to ban hate speech on the social-media platform. (Trump had previously been ousted, leading to the formation of alternative social-media platform Truth Social.)

The relationship between Trump and Musk became publicly explicit when the latter appeared at a Trump rally, formally endorsing him for president

Musk had also donated more than $100m to the Trump campaign.

Following Trump’s victory in early November, it was announced that Musk will co-chair a new department – the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE – designed to curtail government overspending, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy who had himself campaigned for the Republican Party nomination and has been viewed as a political heir-apparent to Trump.

Since then, we know that Musk has joined Trump on a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Added to reports that Musk has previously held regular phone calls with Vladimir Putin, and it’s clear that he’s increasingly likely to become a more visible player in global politics.

All of which leaves Musk’s electric-vehicle company, Tesla, in an interesting place

Seen as a ‘Trump trade’ popular among the president-elect’s supporters, and a clear beneficiary of his second term, 

 was a natural target for those opposing Trump.

Perhaps confident of a Kamala Harris win and blowback against Musk for having sided with Trump, short-sellers bet big against Tesla.

All in all, those wagering against Tesla lost $7.8bn after a 38 per cent post-election surge in shares. The Austin-based company then jumped another 8 per cent on Monday, hitting an intra-day high of $358.64, a record level since April, 2022.

Despite the unexpected surge, Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3 Partners’s managing director, says that short selling will continue

“We expect continued short covering in TSLA stock due to the rally induced short squeeze which will force out many of the 2.4 million shares we saw shorted over the last month,” Dusaniwsky told Business Insider.

Dusaniwsky calculates that short-sellers have bought 1.22m Tesla shares worth nearly $400m since the election, with the current short interest at $25.6bn – as a result, Tesla is the third-largest short behind Apple and Nvidia at $29.7bn and $38.5bn in short interest, respectively.

According to reports, the reaction within Tesla has been mixed

Some employees want Musk to pay more attention to the company, and others are hopeful that Musk’s close links with Trump will benefit the marque.

So far, Trump’s election has been a definite boon for Tesla (and Musk).

Its latest stock rally, combined with hopes that Trump will both drive deregulation efforts for Tesla’s autonomous vehicles and rollback EV tax credits – thus inadvertently damaging smaller EV companies and Tesla’s competitors – has seen Musk’s networth rocket past $300bn.

“On one hand, you want to celebrate the fact that the stock is up an insane amount… But on the other, it’s difficult to be truly happy because of Trump and what it means for Tesla’s mission,” a Tesla engineer told writer Grace Kay.

Tesla’s director of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, was more definitive, posting on X that: ‘America just kicked into founder mode. Time to build!’

Whether Tesla and its employees will continue to build on the company’s rise remains to be seen. Either way, it’s almost certain that, despite the short sellers, Musk’s relationship with Trump is only just taking off.

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