Trump Transition Team's Latest Ask Would Boost Tesla

Tesla stock jumped to an all-time high of $424.77 on Wednesday, beating its November 2021 record of $409.97, reports CNBC. Per Bloomberg, Tesla owner Elon Musk has Donald Trump to thank for that "assist," with a 69% stock surge for the EV manufacturer since the president-elect won a new round in the Oval Office. Now, the automaker is hoping for even more good news from the incoming administration: The Trump transition team is recommending to its boss that a reporting mandate on car crashes that Tesla has long pushed back on be nixed, per Reuters.

Musk's company is already the subject of at least three probes by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as well as the entity that's reported most of the crashes under the program, with more than 1,500 of them registered. The transition team, which had been told to come up with a 100-day auto policy strategy, insisted that the crash-report provision is overreach fueled by "excessive" data collection, reports Reuters. The outlet notes that getting rid of the rule, however, "could cripple the government's ability to investigate and regulate the safety of vehicles with automated-driving systems." It's not clear how much sway Musk had with the transition team, or if the Trump administration would actually put in place the team's suggestions.

Meanwhile, Tesla was included Friday in George Chidi's analysis for the Guardian of Musk's "six major conflicts of interest" with the US federal government. Chidi, who also cited Musk's SpaceX and X platform as being problematic, writes that "Musk, the richest man on Earth, has a wider and deeper range of potential conflicts of interest with the federal government than perhaps any person has ever had," with several of his companies "the subject of federal investigations and regulatory actions, including accusations of hiring discrimination, environmental damage, and safety deficiencies." And, now that Musk—who's been tapped by Trump to head up the soon-to-be commander in chief's Department of Government Efficiency, along with billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy—seems to have Trump's ear, Chidi writes, he fears that Musk is only "likely to get richer." (More Tesla stories.)