When Elon Musk served as President Trump’s top advisor, he was seen as arguably the most influential voice inside the White House.
Nowhere was that more apparent than in Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where Trump handed the unelected billionaire unprecedented power to reshape vast parts of the federal government.
But one issue consistently divided the two men: renewable energy.
While Trump has long pushed to revive America’s coal industry — despite market forces making that a losing battle — Musk has remained an unapologetic champion of solar.
The president has also continued to target consumer tax credits for electric vehicles, a move that could significantly erode Tesla’s future growth.
Although nuclear energy has received full White House backing due to its role in powering AI data centers, nearly every other policy out of the Trump administration has directly undercut the broader clean energy sector.
Solar power has Republican support outside of Congress
“The president is not focused on wind and solar,” Jarrod Agen, deputy assistant to the president and executive director of the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council, said at an energy summit earlier this month.
“They haven’t proven that they can get off the ground.”
Musk would beg to differ. “Solar power is so obviously the future for anyone who can do elementary math,” Musk said on X earlier this month.
Musk was replying to Jesse Peltan, principal at Alussa Energy, who posted a chart showing that by 2030 “China will have the manufacturing capacity to build an entire U.S. worth of generation from solar and storage alone every single year.”
“The anti-solar mind virus has infected the GOP,” Peltan added. “There are still plenty of principled conservatives, but they’re being drowned out by ideologues and cronies.”
Unfortunately for First Solar (FSLR) — the only large-scale solar panel manufacturer based in the U.S. — the GOP’s anti-solar push escalated last week.
Senate Republicans added fresh restrictions to Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” tax-and-spend bill, tightening limits on residential solar tax credits, as Barron’s reported.
First Solar’s stock promptly sank 18% on the news.
RBC Capital Markets analysts led by Christopher Dendrinos cut their price target for First Solar to $188 from $230, citing heightened policy risks.
The stock is now down 17.7% year-to-date and off 44.3% from its 12-month highs.
First Solar had already flagged political risks back in April when it slashed its full-year guidance in response to Trump’s tariffs. Net sales guidance for 2025 was lowered from $5.3–5.8 billion to $4.5–5.5 billion.
But CEO Mark Widmar struck an optimistic tone on the company’s earnings call, insisting that “the political and trade environment continues to be overall long-term favorable from a First Solar perspective.”
So far, that confidence hasn’t played out in the stock.
Public support for solar still strong
Despite mounting policy headwinds in Washington, public sentiment around solar energy remains surprisingly resilient even among Republican voters.
A Pew Research Center survey released earlier this month showed that while Republican support for renewable energy has slipped since Trump’s first term, 61% of GOP voters still support expanded solar use.
For his part, Musk keeps hammering the point. On Friday, he again replied to a post from Peltan highlighting China’s growing solar dominance.
“Solar power in China will exceed ALL sources of electricity combined in the USA in 3 to 4 years,” Musk wrote. “Wake up call.”
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