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The government has long been Elon Musk’s silent partner.

And on Tuesday, his latest bet paid off in a big way on Tuesday.

Tesla’s electric vehicles have been subsidized via credits, charging infrastructure has been supported, and, on occasion, mandates have pushed competitors prematurely into its electric area of expertise.

Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, is also sitting on some $15 billion in government contracts.

On one level, Musk’s government entanglements seemed to remain strictly business. This year, Musk’s approach took a bold new turn.

Musk hitched his political wagon to Donald Trump, unmasking himself as one of the most full-throated Trump-backers from the business world we’ve seen, jumping at rallies and turning X (née Twitter) into a propaganda tool, and donating $132 million to the president-elect’s cause. After Trump’s win, Tesla stock jumped nearly 15%.

At first blush, the billionaire’s support might seem counterintuitive — Trump has always been vocal about wanting his cars to go vroom-vroom. And with a Trump presidency expected to end EV credits, usher in a new era of “drill, baby drill” oil policy that would lower gas prices, and other inflationary tariff policies, the company would have three big strikes against it.

“I'm not quite sure what to make of it,” IG North America’s JJ Kinahan wrote Wednesday of Tesla’s rally. On top of that, Kinahan noted that X is a direct competitor, in theory, to Truth Social, Trump Media’s X substitute that emerged after Trump was kicked off Twitter following Jan. 6.

But if the former partnership with the government was silent, and the government’s support was industry-focused rather than company-specific, this new political era would appear set to single out a winner: Tesla.

In a note Wednesday morning, Wedbush’s Dan Ives wrote that Tesla’s status as the big kahuna of the EV world means it’s set up to win a war of attrition against competitors, which may see their EV efforts starve without credits. A negative for the industry, sure, but a “huge positive for Tesla,” Ives wrote.

That opportunity for dominance, Ives added, would be aided by a moat of tariffs keeping cheaper Chinese EVs from entering the US market and undercutting the company.

Furthermore, “Trump could also accelerate some of the FSD and autonomous initiatives for Tesla,” Ives added. Critical support for Tesla’s purported next phase and a key way Musk having a friend in a high place would pay off.