In Q1 2025, Tesla made $595 million on selling environmental credits/carbon offsets to other car makers. Net income for the whole company was $409 million.

Tesla has earned since 2017 over $10B in carbon offsets. That is in addition to the state and federal incentives.

Tesla took the hit for the transportation industry, working their asses off and pioneering the costly ramp up to mass production of EVs, so the subsidies are the government compensating them for having not taken the easy path that the legacy auto makers are taking with their continued production of polluting gas cars and their half-hearted introduction of compliance cars.

Since government wants to encourage transition to sustainable energy, and oil and gas have been subsidized for decades, not to mention the tens of billions in bailouts for legacy auto, putting things in perspective shows that legacy auto should get the brunt of any criticism here, and the relatively smaller subsidies to Tesla are offsetting the larger investment Tesla has made.

The beauty of it is that the money is actually paid to Tesla by the legacy auto makers who have not stepped up or have stepped up only at a scale of virtue signaling, if you look at the sales numbers.