Tesla and Truth Social shares rise after Trump’s election win

Wall Street’s stock indices hit fresh record highs on Wednesday as investors shrugged off worries about the impact of Donald Trump’s proposed tariff rises on inflation.
The election result powered a rally in Trump trades. Financial firms, oil and gas stocks and industrial, were among the sectors to receive a boost on the result. However, other sectors including renewable energy came under pressure.
Shares in Wall Street banks were on track for record highs on the prospect of lower corporate taxes and lighter regulation that could boost deal-making.
Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo all advanced more than 10 per cent in morning trading on Wall Street. Carl Icahn, one of America’s best-known activist investors, predicted a surge in mergers-and-acquisition deals under a second Trump administration.
“A lot of these mergers have been thwarted by the current administration,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “That’s going to change.”
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Private equity firms also advanced on the expectation of increased M&A activity. Apollo Global’s shares climbed 10 per cent to $164.15, KKR was up 9 per cent to $151.56 and Blackstone added 3.7 per cent to $175.94.
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Tesla’s shares jumped more than 14 per cent to $286.92 on hopes that the electric vehicle-maker will benefit from its chief executive Elon Musk’s decision to back Trump.
Musk, who donated more than $100 million to the pro-Republican America Pac and used his social media platform X to promote the president-elect, has been promised a role as head of a department for government efficiency in the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, shares in Trump’s social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns the Truth Social platform, jumped as much as 25 per cent before paring gains to about 5 per cent in late-morning trading on Wall Street.
The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp was the only one of the so-called Magnificent Seven US technology stocks to drop after the election result.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, has had a contentious relationship with Trump since Facebook banned the former US president from the platform in the wake of the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Facebook reinstated his account last year.
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Earlier this year Trump labelled Facebook an “enemy of the people”. He has also said he does not support a ban on TikTok, a rival to Meta. “The thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media,” Trump told CNBC in March.
The shares were down $5.82, or 1 per cent, at $566.61 during midday trading in New York.
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US renewable energy stocks sank on the election result amid fears that Trump will focus energy policy on maximising oil and gas production and away from fighting climate change.
Sunnova Energy International, a Texas-based solar storage firm, dropped $3.11, or 44 per cent, to $3.95 in morning trading in New York. First Solar, a solar panel manufacturer, lost $27.23, or 12.6 per cent, to trade at $188.66.
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The result lifted some of America’s biggest oil and gas companies as oil prices turned positive.
Shares in Exxon Mobil and Chevron gained 1.3 per cent to $120.48 and 2.7 per cent to $157.50 respectively.
Shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, America’s mortgage guarantors, surged on the prospect of a return to private ownership after nationalisation.
During Trump’s last administration, the US government drew up plans to recapitalise the mortgage giants and create a comprehensive housing reform that would allow them to be freed from government control. Fannie Mae leapt $0.27, or 19.8 per cent, to $1.66, while Freddie Mac climbed $0.32, or 26.7 per cent, to $1.52.