California just killed the EV tax credit it promised to protect.
Now Gavin Newsom is on camera calling Elon Musk "one of the great disappointments" of our time.
The man who broke his own EV promises is lecturing the man who actually built the industry.
Newsom Killed the California EV Tax Credit He Promised to Protect
Newsom told Axios he was "one of the first Teslas off the line" and that California's regulations created the conditions that made Musk a billionaire.
He's right about that part.
California's Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate – in place since 1990 – helped build the regulatory tailwind that gave Tesla its early market advantage.
https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/2036902492920005014?s=20
Newsom turned that into a 2035 mandate requiring 100% of new car sales to be zero-emission.
Then he bailed on the people who believed him.
When the federal $7,500 EV tax credit expired in September 2025, Newsom had already promised California would replace it with a state-level rebate.
He killed that promise – citing a budget deficit his own government created.
EV sales in California dropped immediately after the credit disappeared.
His own 2026 model-year target – 35% zero-emission vehicle sales – is now in serious jeopardy, with the California New Car Dealers Association projecting the state won't come close.
Automakers who miss that threshold face $20,000-per-vehicle penalties.
Newsom built a mandate his own state can't meet, killed the incentive that made it possible, and is now blaming Elon Musk.
China Controls 70 Percent of the Global EV Market and Newsom Helped Make It Happen
Here's the part Newsom won't say out loud: China's EV dominance didn't happen because Musk pivoted to robotics.
It happened because China made EVs a national security strategy and America made them a culture war.
China now controls over 70% of global EV production, processes over 75% of the entire battery value chain, and its battery giant CATL alone commands nearly 38% of the global EV battery market.
That's not Elon Musk's fault.
That's two decades of American politicians – including California Democrats – treating EVs as a subsidy program instead of an industrial policy.
Detroit's Big Three have fallen from 21.4% global market share in 2019 to an estimated 15.7% in 2025, while BYD and Geely have surged from under 3% to over 11% in the same period.
BYD delivered 2.26 million vehicles in 2025 – beating Tesla's 1.64 million for the first time ever.
China is now moving into Canada under a tariff reduction deal that puts 49,000 subsidized vehicles right on America's northern border.
Newsom stood in front of cameras and called all of this a national security crisis.
He's right.
He just forgot to mention that California – the state he runs – missed every EV mandate marker, cut the incentives that drive adoption, and watched the U.S. Senate strip his 2035 gas car ban in May 2025.
The governor who claims to be America's EV champion presides over a state that burned every promise and handed the policy advantage to Beijing.
This Is What Losing Looks Like
Trump made the right call pulling back Biden's mandates – and here's why Newsom will never admit it.
Mandates don't build industries.
China proved that.
Beijing didn't regulate their way to 70% of the global EV market – they made the cars cheaper than anyone else could build them, locked up every lithium mine and battery plant on the planet, and priced Western competitors into the ground.
The U.S. answer to that isn't more California regulation.
It's the kind of competitive industrial strategy Trump is executing – tariffs that protect American manufacturers, supply chain reshoring, and letting companies like Tesla innovate without Sacramento looking over their shoulder.
Newsom wants credit for creating Tesla's success through regulation, but he won't take responsibility for driving Tesla's headquarters to Texas, trying to exclude Tesla from his own rebate program, and watching California EV sales collapse when he pulled the financial rug out.
The man who calls Elon Musk a disappointment broke every promise he made to the industry Musk built.
That's not heartbreak.
That's hypocrisy.
Sources:
- CJ Womack, "California Gov. Newsom slams Elon Musk, raises national security fears over EV market," Fox News, March 30, 2026.
- "Global Rankings of EV Adoption by Country," Gasgoo/EV Sales Data, March 25, 2026.
- "China Electric Cars Market 2025: Complete Analysis & Growth," Solar Tech Online, December 2025.
- "How America's EV retreat is increasing China's control of global markets," CNBC, February 6, 2026.
- "California EV buyers betrayed: Newsom abandons incentive promise," CBT News, January 15, 2026.
- "Will California Meet Newsom's 2035 EV Deadline? It Won't Even Hit the 2026 Target," GV Wire, April 27, 2025.
- "US Senate blocks California's electric car mandate in historic vote," CalMatters, May 22, 2025.