A new document undercuts Trump admin's denials about $400M Tesla deal

> NPR has obtained a State Department document detailing that Biden's State Department planned to spend just $483,000 in the 2025 fiscal year on buying electric vehicles and $3 million for supporting equipment, like charging stations. It represented less than 1% of the hundreds of millions of dollars likely destined for Tesla vehicles after the Trump administration quietly revised a State Department procurement document.

> The person said the State Department and Tesla had agreed during the Biden administration to conduct research about armoring electric vehicles, but no money had been set aside to purchase armored Teslas for the State Department. A total budget of $483,000 had been approved to buy light-duty EVs as possible State Department vehicles. That plan was moving forward as recently as November 2024.

> After the original procurement document attracted widespread attention, NPR reported that the Trump administration appeared to have quietly edited the document, changing the phrase "armored Tesla" to the more generic "armored electric vehicles" without explanation. Eventually, the item vanished from the State Department's procurement document.

> The document claims it was originally published in December, at the end of then-President Joe Biden's term, but it does not appear in the Internet Archive for that month.