So instrumental have government loans, tax breaks and other EV policies been to Tesla’s fast growth that despite Musk’s gradual embrace of the former president and his Republican Party rhetoric in recent years, the company continues to lobby the U.S. and state governments for benefits championed by the Democratic Party.

In February, for instance, Tesla in a filing with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, urged the Biden administration to allow California to pursue stricter vehicle emissions rules than the rest of the country – an idea Trump opposes.

Months earlier, in a previous filing with the agency, Tesla lobbied the government for regulations that would ban the production of most new gasoline cars by 2035 – the so-called “EV mandate” that Trump and others on the American right have criticized.

The disparity is hardly the first time that the billionaire entrepreneur – himself increasingly dismissive of subsidies – has sent mixed signals on business and politics.

“Elon tends to say he’s hostile to subsidies while Tesla is gobbling them up like a hungry Godzilla,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who runs the EV Politics Project, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group that seeks bipartisan support for electric vehicles.

People familiar with Musk’s management at the carmaker told Reuters his approach to subsidies is pragmatic, a willingness to accept public money if it’s there for the taking. Musk’s willingness to overlook outright Republican opposition to an industry he helped pioneer, meanwhile, signals a broader focus on goals that may not dovetail with the immediate interests of his businesses.

“Tesla is not the endgame for him,” said Andrew Ward, a management professor at Lehigh University, noting Musk’s holdings in sectors ranging from artificial intelligence to space exploration to neuroscience. Musk could “sacrifice some of the short-term interest in Tesla,” Ward added, “if it’ll satisfy the long-term interests of his ambitions.”