Bulk of funds for electric vehicle firm relate to government’s plug-in car grant, analysis finds

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Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company has received almost £200m in grants from the UK government since 2016, according to analysis.

Tesla, which is run by the tech billionaire who has become increasingly vocal about the UK government, has received £191m from Westminster through grants, according to Tussell, which analyses public contract data.

The bulk of the funds came from the Department for Transport (DfT), which has given the company £188m over that period.

The transport funds related to the plug-in car grant, which was designed to encourage the uptake of EVs and plug-in hybrids. Introduced in 2011, the grant provided a discount towards the cost of new plug-in cars, initially at £5,000, until the scheme ended in June 2022. The seller included it as a discount in the purchase price.

The transport grants peaked at £61.6m in 2020 and have declined since then, with the company receiving £49,000 in the first six months of last year, the latest DfT figures show.

The rest of Tesla’s UK grants came from Stirling council, the South Central NHS trust, the Scottish government and several other bodies.

Tesla emerging as a beneficiary of UK government grants sits at odds with Musk’s talk of shrinking the state, and slashing federal spending.

He has been appointed by the US president-elect, Donald Trump, to co-lead a “Department of Government Efficiency”, charged with downsizing the federal bureaucracy. Musk, who cut staff by 80% at X, formerly Twitter, after buying the social media platform in 2022, has said that the 428 federal agencies in the US could be reduced to 99.

Last week, Tesla reported its first decline in annual deliveries, as incentives failed to boost demand for its ageing lineup of models. The company failed to meet quarterly delivery targets multiple times in 2024.

Musk, the world’s richest man, has in recent days used X to attack Keir Starmer and other politicians over the grooming scandal.

On Monday, the prime minister condemned Musk’s increasingly erratic attacks on the government, suggesting his “lies and misinformation” on grooming gangs were amplifying the “poison” of the far right.

Tesla has been approached for comment.