{"id":125910,"date":"2026-07-09T05:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T05:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/125910\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T05:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T05:37:11","slug":"exclusive-germany-bankrolled-tesla-buyers-with-e860m-to-help-hit-eu-covid-recovery-targets-and-now-gives-e71m-to-musks-berlin-gigafactory-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/125910\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Germany bankrolled Tesla buyers with \u20ac860m to help hit EU Covid recovery targets \u2013 and now gives \u20ac71m to Musk\u2019s Berlin gigafactory too"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk\u2019s wealth soared to stratospheric levels last month after he became the world\u2019s first trillionaire, primarily driven by SpaceX\u2019s stock market launch.<\/p>\n

At the same time, \u20ac860m subsidies for Tesla owners helped Germany tap EU Covid money, while Musk\u2019s gigafactory in Berlin is now receiving over \u20ac71m in state aid, according to internal documents obtained by EUobserver.<\/p>\n

An investigation by EUobserver sought to trace to what extent, if any, the EU\u2019s post-pandemic Covid bailout funds were directed towards Tesla in Germany, where Musk openly supports the neo-fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD)<\/a> \u2013 while declaring the EU a civilisational threat \u2013 views shared by Donald Trump and Russia\u2019s president, Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

\"\"Elon Musk making his Nazi salute at a Donald Trump rally, January 2025<\/p>\n

Between 2020 and 2023, nearly \u20ac860m of German subsidies went to Tesla buyers in Germany, under a programme that helped unlock the country\u2019s EU Covid refinancing efforts. <\/p>\n

Germany relied on an EV-subsidy programme to help satisfy green targets tied to its post-pandemic recovery package, which meant Tesla purchasers were indirectly part of the conditions for unlocking EU recovery funds for the federal government.<\/p>\n

Even so, Musk last December, in an online rant after breaking EU digital rules, said that \u201cthe EU should be abolished\u201d while comparing its institutions to the \u201cFourth Reich\u201d, in reference to Nazi Germany, for having fined his social media platform X some \u20ac120m.<\/p>\n

The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people<\/p>\n

\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

X is being used as a springboard for white supremacists, misogynists and dangerous conspiracy theories, says the US-based Centre for Countering Digital Hate<\/a>, a non-profit, which has accused Musk of fuelling violence in Belfast after a brutal stabbing blamed on an asylum seeker.<\/p>\n

He also famously said it was Tesla’s belief that all subsidies, including for oil and gas, should be eliminated after turning down \u20ac1.14bn in federal and Brandenburg state aid under the EU’s IPCEI Batteries framework in 2021 for a battery-cell production facility near Gr\u00fcnheide, some 30km from Berlin.<\/p>\n

However, the funds came with \u201cfirst industrial deployment\u201d restrictions, forcing Tesla to turn it down, while the US offered large, production-based tax credits with fewer strings attached.<\/p>\n

“For a company like Tesla, that is probably much more attractive,” says Lucas Carvalho, at the Berlin-based Bertelsmann Stiftung, an independent foundation, of the US offer.<\/p>\n

“Firms generally prefer tax incentives over direct subsidies because they offer greater flexibility, with less administrative burden or political scrutiny,” he pointed out.<\/p>\n

Despite Musk’s past views on such subsidies, the Gigafactory is now receiving German taxpayer money as it rolls out Model Ys, while subsidies helped create sales surges of his Tesla cars.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Funding Tesla\u2019s Gr\u00fcnheide factory<\/p>\n

Shortly after his online \u201cFourth Reich\u201d tirade, the German state of Brandenburg made its first of three of \u20ac24m instalments to Tesla\u2019s Gr\u00fcnheide<\/a> battery factory, following a European Commission green light under a Ukraine-war crisis-and-transformation framework.<\/p>\n

EUobserver findings also indicate that Germany is entitled to several hundred million euros as a proportional share of Covid-era refinancing for the subsidies it paid out to Tesla owners between 2021 and 2023. This is an illustrative estimate based on figures provided by Germany’s finance ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s wealth soared to stratospheric levels last month after he became the world\u2019s first trillionaire, primarily driven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[5754,112,190,11982,61555,18525,16023,61558,61561,16021,18523,11980,61553,61556,61559,16022,18524,11981,61554,61557,61560],"class_list":["post-125910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-berlin","tag-germany","tag-identifier25","tag-identifier4041","tag-identifier4277","tag-identifier4409","tag-identifier4800","tag-identifier4801","tag-nameeconomy","tag-namegermany","tag-namegreen-economy","tag-nameinvestigation","tag-namemusk","tag-nametesla","tag-termcodeeconomy","tag-termcodegermany","tag-termcodegreen-economy","tag-termcodeinvestigation","tag-termcodemusk","tag-termcodetesla"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}