Elon Musk Is At It Again

Happy Tuesday! It’s July 1, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning’s edition, we’re looking at Elon Musk’s latest Twitter spat with President Donald Trump, as well as what’s happening to Elon Musk’s car company while he’s busy having Twitter spats with the President. We’ll also look at the Senate’s desperation to end the $7,500 EV tax credit, and the new waiting list for Xiaomi’s SU7. 

Elon Musk paid nine figures to ensure Donald Trump won a second term as President, despite the latter’s openly anti-EV stance. Now, Trump is pushing a budget bill that cuts funding for EV tax credits, and Musk is upset that his nine figures didn’t buy him complete and utter loyalty. From Automotive News:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk renewed his feud with President Donald Trump over the Republican budget bill advancing through Congress, with Musk floating a new political party and Trump mocking his former adviser for taking government subsidies.

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In posts on X Monday, Musk blamed Republicans and Democrats for rising national debt and suggested he’d start “the America Party” if the bill passed. Musk, the world’s richest person, spent over $250 million to support Republicans in the Nov. 5 election.

“Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE,” Musk posted June 30. “It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill … that we live in a one-party country — the PORKY PIG PARTY!!”

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“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites or Electric Car Production.”

Trump suggested DOGE could look into the subsidies that benefit Musk’s companies. “BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”

The richest man in the world and the (arguably) most powerful man in the world are yelling at each other on the social media platforms they both own. Where did we go wrong? How did we get here? Is it possible to come back from this? 

Musk is right to be afraid of the budget bill, because his car company is struggling enough as it is. Shoppers are avoiding Tesla both because of the CEO’s rancid politics, which he funds with Tesla money, as well as the fact that Tesla’s cars are simply old and cheap-feeling. From Reuters: 

Tesla is expected to report another fall in quarterly deliveries on Wednesday as the backlash against CEO Elon Musk’s political views and competitive pressures continue to drag on demand.

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Though Musk has shifted his focus back to his companies, the backlash, along with customers choosing cheaper Chinese EVs, led to the fifth straight month of falling sales for Tesla in Europe, with a 27.9% drop in May, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association showed.

In China, Tesla’s share of the EV market has fallen to 7.6% for the first five months of 2025, from 10% last year and a peak of 15% in 2020, as competitors won over consumers with snazzy, new, feature-packed EVs. Xiaomi’s YU7 SUV received exceptionally strong orders hours after going on sale last week and fanned speculation that Tesla may have to cut prices to fight back.

You mean you can’t just sell the same cars for years on end without substantial updates in a tech-driven field that’s rapidly maturing, while also politically alienating much of your customer base? Says who?

The Senate is currently preparing to vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill which would cut EV tax credits. It seems, though, that senators can’t quite agree on one core piece of the legislation: How quick they can get those pesky tax credits out of there. From Automotive News:

The Senate is planning to once again accelerate the end of the $7,500 new electric vehicle tax credit in the proposed legislation, this time to Sept. 30, 2025.

A prior version of the Senate budget bill text would have eliminated the tax credit 180 days after passage. A House version of the budget bill would have eliminated the credit at the end of the year.

The Senate’s speedier timeline highlights how Congress is willing to buck the wishes of automakers and dealers who have advocated for a runway to offload EV inventory using the credit.

The bill will raise prices on EVs — seemingly our only viable half-measure towards the continued habitability of our planet — and strip millions of their Medicare in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthy and a nightmarish, authoritarian Customs and Border Patrol detention and deportation program. It will pass, it’s just a matter of the specifics. You thought the Twitter beef was why we live in hell? No, no, it’s far worse than that. 

Xiaomi opened orders for its YU7 crossover last week, and the car’s turned out to be popular so far — nearly a quarter million people have put their money down to preorder one. There’s just one small problem with its popularity: Xiaomi has neither the inventory nor the production capacity to deliver on those orders in a timely manner. From Reuters:

China’s Xiaomi is telling customers of its new YU7 electric sports utility vehicle they will have to wait more than a year to receive their cars, sparking a fresh wave of complaints against the company.

The smartphone turned EV maker said it received roughly 240,000 orders for the YU7 in the first 18 hours after the car went on sale on Thursday night, but only a small number of vehicles were available for immediate delivery.

By Tuesday, the Xiaomi app showed purchasers were facing a wait of between 38 and 60 weeks, according to Reuters checks.

The YU7 is one of the better-looking crossovers on the market, so it’s understandable that folks would flock to it. Just look at that pink colorway on the right, and tell me you’d be unhappy to see that in your driveway. 

Canada Day is a much better name than our Independence Day. The U.S. term is so vague and broad, Canada Day tells you exactly what’s going on. Ours has a better movie, though. 

You ever have a morning where you read the news too soon after waking up, and suddenly you’re caught in a very specific musical genre all day? That’s me this morning.