Tesla Stock Continues to Crash as Musk vs. Trump Feud Goes Nuclear
Pool via AP
The rapidly escalating feud between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk has not only stunned the political media world but also caused Tesla’s stock price to plummet throughout the day Thursday.
Not since a persnickety French soldier told King Arthur “your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!” have two grown men publicly exchanged such a memorable series of petty insults, initially sparked over their diverging views about the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a massive budget reconciliation bill pushed by the president that passed the House but has been struggling to get enough votes in the Senate.
Trump blamed Musk’s opposition to the bill on the removal of electric vehicle and solar incentives, which have been a multibillion dollar windfall for the Tesla CEO, and Musk fired back that the bill is full of wasteful “DISGUSTING PORK.” As Thursday rolled on, Musk declared Trump would have lost the 2024 election without his help and groused about the president’s “ingratitude,” swiftly followed by claiming there was incriminating evidence about the president in the Epstein files and calling for Trump to be impeached. Trump threatened to cancel Musk’s lucrative federal contracts, and Musk retorted that SpaceX “will be begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
As the drama escalated, Tesla’s stock price took a noticeable hit. As of 1:30 pm ET, the stock had dropped nearly nine points, and that collapse continued throughout the afternoon.
Tesla closed at $284.70, down 14.26% for the day, accelerating a nearly 18% drop for the week as Musk has amplified his criticisms of the bill — and the president has grown increasingly testy about it.
Screenshot via Google.
As CNBC’s report noted, Tesla had seen a 22% uptick in the stock price in late May — despite abysmal sales numbers for the Cybertruck and weakening sales for Tesla overall — as Musk wrapped his work with DOGE and vowed to shareholders he would refocus on his business enterprises. That gain has now been almost totally erased with Thursday’s drop, plus the ongoing downward trend during after hours trading.
The decrease in the electric vehicle manufacturer’s stock price now meant that Tesla’s market cap was below the $1 trillion benchmark, CNBC reported.
