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Since 2021, Jack Ewing has covered the many twists and turns of the rapidly evolving American auto industry for The New York Times, including the rise of electric vehicles, the race to build enough E.V. chargers and the environmental toll of our electric future.

But nothing could have prepared Mr. Ewing for the swift political ascent of Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and now a top adviser to President Trump.

In recent months, Mr. Ewing has written about Tesla vehicle owners experiencing buyer’s remorse as well as the company’s declining sales as backlash against Mr. Musk grows.

“I’ve never had a really predictable beat,” Mr. Ewing said. “But it’s gotten even crazier because Trump operates at all hours.”

Surprisingly, Mr. Ewing, who joined The Times in 2010 as a European economics reporter based in Frankfurt, doesn’t consider himself much of a car enthusiast.

“I’m interested in the engineering,” he said. “I like to visit factories. But I’m not someone who gets all excited about horse power, or some new kind of car.”

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By the usual measures, this is a small post-debate bounce. In fact, it is the smallest bounce for the perceived consensus winner of the first presidential debate so far this century. George W. Bush, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and, yes, Donald J. Trump earlier this year, all peaked with gains of at least two points after their debates.

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