He promised to spend $20 billion instead of $4 billion on pie in the sky projects that would have been a money transfer.
The whole idea is to get the government’s hands off, not:
“I will roll up my sleeves in the first 100 days I’m in office, and I will personally bring together industry, labor, congressional, and state leaders and together we will develop a plan to rebuild America’s automotive leadership,” he said to applause.
Are you an anarchist?
Facilitating orderly renegotiation of contracts in troubled companies is one the few legitimate roles for the state under just about any conservative political philosophy. Normally this is done by bankruptcy courts, organs of the state, but in especially large cases of restructuring there is no reason why a president can't help to act as a mediator.
As to the taxpayer money he promised, it was supposed to go to basic R&D, which again is a legitimate use of taxpayer money under just about any conservative political philosophy.
It's not an accident that government funding for basic scientific and engineering research tends to be higher under Republican administrations.