On the marketing campaign path, Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate Eric Hovde has repeatedly attacked electrical automobile subsidies, describing them as a part of a broader inexperienced power “tax scheme” and “corporate welfare.”
But when it got here to investing his personal huge wealth, Hovde has wager on EV producers like Rivian, Lucid Motors and Nikola Corp. Within the final yr alone, he raked in as a lot as $5.26 million in capital good points from investments in EVs, together with in corporations which have acquired large authorities subsidies and tax breaks, in line with monetary disclosures reviewed by HuffPost.
Hovde, a multimillionaire financial institution govt who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2012, is difficult incumbent Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. He’s finishing up a run-of-the-mill MAGA marketing campaign that has included grumbling about electrical automobiles and the Biden administration’s inexperienced power agenda.
In radio and podcast interviews since saying his marketing campaign in February, Hovde has condemned EV and inexperienced power initiatives as “just corporate welfare for a lot of people making a ton of money off of it.” He’s dismissed so-called EV “mandates” as merchandise of a “liberal fantasy land” that can “be a bloodbath for the automaker.”
In an April interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Hovde painted EVs and wind generators as not economically viable, and referred to as tax credit to help these applied sciences “tax games” and “tax schemes.”
Shortly earlier than his official marketing campaign announcement, Hovde informed the Vicki McKenna Present that “EVs aren’t even that environmentally friendly” and railed in opposition to their lowered effectivity in chilly climate.
“It’s all a charade,” he stated of EVs. “They’re great at gaslighting.”
EVs have grow to be a favourite goal of the GOP. However Hovde’s posture is sophisticated by the truth that the EV “charade,” as he referred to as it, has been a boon for his personal checking account.
“Eric made smart investments because the stocks were trading below cash value, but he doesn’t believe in government picking winners and losers and he opposes the Biden-Harris EV incentives,” Ben Voelkel, a spokesperson for Hovde, stated in an e mail response.
Tom Williams through Getty Photos
Over the past yr, Hovde reported capital good points earnings of between $202,501 and $2,005,000 from his holdings in California-based EV producer Rivian, in line with his Senate marketing campaign monetary disclosure, which studies belongings in broad ranges reasonably than particular figures. Sure Rivian fashions qualify for $3,750 in federal tax credit, and the corporate has acquired practically $2.4 billion in state and native subsidies, in line with the Good Jobs First subsidy tracker.
Hovde earned one other $202,503 to $2,005,000 in capital good points from inventory in Lucid Motors, a California-based luxurious EV producer that has acquired state and native subsidies valued at $113 million. That features the greater than $54 million in incentives, tax credit and grants it secured in 2016 to construct an EV manufacturing facility exterior Phoenix, Arizona.
Horde additionally raked in between $151,002 And $1,102,501 from inventory in Nikola. The Arizona-headquartered firm manufactures each battery-powered electrical and hydrogen gas cell-powered electrical industrial vans. On its web site, Nikola advertises a $40,000 per automobile federal tax credit score, in addition to a number of state incentives, and has reportedly acquired greater than $14 million in federal, state and native subsidies.
Lastly, Hovde final yr pocketed between $65,201 and $151,000 from his holdings in Faraday Future, a California-based EV startup. The corporate acquired however later forfeited giant tax incentive packages in Nevada and California.
The EV investments have been made via Monetary Establishment Companions III, L.P., an funding administration firm. On a type that Hovde filed with the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee in late 2022, he famous that he’s “the managing member of Hovde Capital Ltd., the general partner to Financial Institution Partners III LP.” Hovde additionally has vital investments in fossil gas giants, together with as a lot as $6 million price of inventory in each ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
If elected, Hovde can be one of many richest folks in Congress, with a internet price of between $195.4 million and $564.5 million, in accordance to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Because the chairman and CEO of Sunwest Financial institution, he was paid a wage of greater than $1 million final yr, his monetary disclosure reveals.
Whereas Hovde has been out in public slamming an EV business that he’s personally profited from, allied political motion committees and right-wing organizations have been working to paint Baldwin, his opponent, as an unwavering supporter of the Biden administration’s “radical agenda” on local weather.
Earlier this yr, Restoration PAC, a brilliant PAC funded largely by GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein, ran an advert that accused Baldwin of voting to “cut Medicare funding and use that money to subsidize electric vehicles,” the Journal Sentinel reported. The assault advert was referring to Baldwin’s vote in help of the Inflation Discount Act, which included insurance policies to cut back Medicare prices however didn’t minimize advantages.
Because the Journal Sentinel reported, attorneys for the Democratic Senatorial Marketing campaign Committee accused Restoration PAC of blatantly mendacity about Baldwin’s report and demanded the advert be pulled from TV. The advert was in the end changed with the same one claiming Baldwin voted “to use Medicare money for electric vehicle subsidies, instead of seniors” — a change {that a} spokesperson for Baldwin referred to as “just as false” as the unique.
