The Epstein files obsession, explained
In a spat with President Trump, Elon Musk invokes the Epstein files, a source of endless speculation and conspiracy.
For months, Trump administration officials have faced mounting pressure from the far right and online influencers to release the so-called Epstein files, the remaining investigative documents of the sex-trafficking investigation into
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1News
4 hours ago
- 1News
Musk could lose billions depending on how spat with Trump unfolds
The world's richest man could lose billions in his fight with world's most powerful politician. The feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump could mean Tesla's plans for self-driving cars hit a roadblock, SpaceX flies fewer missions for NASA, Starlink gets fewer overseas satellite contracts and the social media platform X loses advertisers. Maybe, that is. It all depends on Trump's appetite for revenge and how the dispute unfolds. Joked Telemetry Insight auto analyst Sam Abuelsamid said: 'Since Trump has no history of retaliating against perceived adversaries, he'll probably just let this pass.' Turning serious, he sees trouble ahead for Musk. ADVERTISEMENT 'For someone that rants so much about government pork, all of Elon's businesses are extremely dependent on government largesse, which makes him vulnerable.' Trump and the federal government also stand to lose from a long-running dispute, but not as much as Musk. Tesla robotaxis US President and tech billionaire part ways over over Trump's 'big, beautiful, budgeet bill'. (Source: 1News) The dispute comes just a week before a planned test of Tesla's driverless taxis in Austin, Texas, a major event for the company because sales of its EVs are lagging in many markets, and Musk needs a win. Trump can mess things up for Tesla by encouraging federal safety regulators to step in at any sign of trouble for the robotaxis. Even before the war of words broke out on Thursday, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration requested data on how Musk's driverless, autonomous taxis will perform in low-visibility conditions. That request follows an investigation last year into 2.4 million Teslas equipped with full self-driving software after several accidents, including one that killed a pedestrian. ADVERTISEMENT A spokesman for NHTSA said the probe was ongoing and that the agency "will take any necessary actions to protect road safety'. The Department of Justice has also probed the safety of Tesla cars, but the status of that investigation is unclear. The DOJ did not respond immediately to requests for comment. The promise of a self-driving future led by Tesla inspired shareholders to boost the stock by 50% in the weeks after Musk confirmed the Austin rollout. But on Thursday, the stock plunged more than 14% amid the Trump-Musk standoff. On Friday, it recovered a bit, bouncing back nearly 4%. 'Tesla's recent rise was almost entirely driven by robotaxi enthusiasm," said Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein. 'Elon's feud with Trump could be a negative.' A member of the Seattle Fire Department inspects a burned Tesla Cybertruck at a Tesla lot in Seattle on March 10, 2025 (Source: Associated Press) Carbon credits business One often overlooked but important part of Tesla's business that could take a hit is its sales of carbon credits. ADVERTISEMENT As Musk and Trump were slugging it out Thursday, Republican senators inserted new language into Trump's budget bill that would eliminate fines for gas-powered cars that fall short of fuel economy standards. Tesla has a thriving side business selling 'regulatory credits' to other automakers to make up for their shortfalls. Musk has downplayed the importance of the credits business, but the changes would hurt Tesla as it reels from boycotts of its cars tied to Musk's time working for Trump. Credit sales jumped by a third to $595 million in the first three months of the year even as total revenue slumped. Reviving sales President Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk speaks in the Oval Office at the White House. (Source: Associated Press) Musk's foray into right-wing politics cost Tesla sales among the environmentally minded consumers who embraced electric cars and led to boycotts of Tesla showrooms. If Musk has indeed ended his close association with Trump, those buyers could come back, but that's far from certain. ADVERTISEMENT Meanwhile, one analyst speculated earlier this year that Trump voters in so-called red counties could buy Teslas 'in a meaningful way'. But he's now less hopeful. 'There are more questions than answers following Thursday developments,' TD Cowen's Itay Michaeli wrote in his latest report, 'and it's still too early to determine any lasting impacts'. Michaeli's stock target for Tesla earlier this year was $388. He has since lowered it to $330. Tesla was trading Friday at $300. Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Moonshot mess Trump said Thursday that he could cut government contracts to Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, a massive threat to a company that has received billions of federal dollars. The privately held company that is reportedly worth US$350 billion (NZ$580 billion) provides launches, sends astronauts into space for NASA and has a contract to send a team from the space agency to the moon next year. ADVERTISEMENT But if Musk has a lot to lose, so does the US. SpaceX is the only US company capable of transporting crews to and from the space station, using its four-person Dragon capsules. The other alternative is politically dicey: depending wholly on Russia's Soyuz capsules. Musk knew all this when he shot back at Trump that SpaceX would begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft. But it is unclear how serious his threat was. Several hours later — in a reply to another X user — he said he wouldn't do it. Starlink impact? A subsidiary of SpaceX, the satellite internet company Starlink, appears to also have benefited from Musk's once-close relationship with the president. Musk announced that Saudi Arabia had approved Starlink for some services during a trip with Trump in the Middle East last month. The company has also won a string of other recent deals in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and elsewhere as Trump has threatened tariffs. It's not clear how much politics played a role, and how much is pure business. ADVERTISEMENT On Friday, the Associated Press confirmed that India had approved a key license to Starlink. At least 40% of India's more than 1.4 billion people have no access to the internet. Ad revival interrupted? Big advertisers that fled X after Musk welcomed all manner of conspiracy theories to the social media platform have started to trickle back in recent months, possibly out of fear of a conservative backlash. Musk has called their decision to leave an 'illegal boycott' and sued them, and the Trump administration recently weighed in with a Federal Trade Commission probe into possible coordination among them. Now advertisers may have to worry about a different danger. If Trump sours on X, "there's a risk that it could again become politically radioactive for major brands,' said Sarah Kreps, a political scientist at Cornell University. She added, though, that an 'exodus isn't obvious, and it would depend heavily on how the conflict escalates, how long it lasts and how it ends.'
RNZ News
12 hours ago
- RNZ News
Elon Musk's deep dive into politics was bad for business. His breakup with Trump could hurt even worse
By Matt Egan , CNN Elon Musk. Photo: AFP Analysis - Elon Musk's decision to go all in on Donald Trump never made much sense. His scorched-earth approach to breaking up with Trump is even harder to square. As a close Trump ally, Musk's actions inevitably affected Tesla - the biggest piece of his business empire and the maker of one of the most visible and expensive items that Americans can purchase: electric vehicles. First, Musk turned off Tesla's core customers, Democrats on the coasts, by pouring money and using his influence to help Trump return to the White House. Then he took a chainsaw to the federal workforce. Trump confirmed their relationship has soured , with Musk repeatedly blasting the president's sweeping domestic agenda bill in recent days and a public fight on social media on Thursday (US time). Now, Musk's war of words with the president risk turning off the same Trump voters who may have considered buying a Tesla until this week. Not only that, but Tesla's ambitions for self-driving vehicles require government approval, something that no longer looks like a sure thing amid the Musk-Trump feud. Other Musk businesses like SpaceX are built on government contracts - contracts that Trump wasted no time threatening on Thursday. The past 12 months - with Musk marrying himself to the polarising Trump brand and then breaking up with him - look like a textbook example of what a CEO should not do, especially a consumer-facing CEO. "It's a bit of a head-scratcher that Musk is going so rogue-negative towards Trump so quickly. It's a potentially very hazardous path," Dan Ives, a senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities and a longtime Tesla bull, told CNN in a phone interview on Thursday. The Musk-Trump break-up, playing out on the billionaires' respective social media platforms, was both entirely predictable and shocking nonetheless. After Musk blasted Trump's policy bill as a "disgusting abomination" earlier this week, Trump suggested Musk has "Trump derangement syndrome." Musk responded by undercutting Trump's political prowess, saying: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election." As two of the world's most powerful people continued to trade public barbs, Tesla shares dropped lower and lower. Tesla shares (TSLA) [ plummeted 14 percent as the bromance between Trump and Musk imploded in front of the entire world. The selloff erased about US$152 billion (NZ$252 billion) from Tesla's market value and US$34 billion (NZ$56.4 billion) off Musk's net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Tesla shares rebounded on Friday morning but only modestly. Trump told CNN's Dana Bash on Friday that he's "not even thinking about Elon" and won't be speaking to him in the near future. "He's got a problem. The poor guy's got a problem," Trump said. Tesla shareholders are dismayed on multiple levels. First, Musk taking on the president so publicly could further shrink the car maker's customer base by angering Trump backers. "You could end up alienating both sides of the aisle in the course of just a few months. When you're a consumer-facing company, that's the opposite of what you want to do," Ives said. By combing through daily tracking data, researchers found in a recent working paper that Musk's endorsement of Trump and role in the administration "politicised Tesla, polarised the electric vehicle carmaker's brand image and reputation, and likely resulted in partisan consumerism." "Corporate leaders engage in partisan politics at the peril of their brand images and, ultimately, even the bottom line," professors from the University of Northern Iowa, Columbia University and Northeastern University wrote in the paper. Secondly, Tesla relies on the federal government for tax credits and for approval of its controversial full-self driving technology, a green light that investors had been hoping for after the election. Neuralink, Musk's brain chip startup, is also reliant on FDA approval. Bigger picture, the Trump administration will help set the regulatory landscape for autonomous vehicles, not to mention artificial intelligence and other Musk priorities. And the president has not been shy about flexing the power of the federal government to hurt his opponents. "You want Trump nice in the sandbox. You don't want Trump on your bad side," Ives said. Bill George, an executive fellow at the Harvard Business School and former CEO of health tech company Medtronic, described the recent feud as a "brutal breakup." "Never go to war with the president of the United States," he said. "There's going to be a lot of collateral damage to your business." Trump threatened on Thursday to go after Musk's business empire. "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. "I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!" SpaceX, Musk's privately held space company, relies heavily on federal contracts, especially from NASA. SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet recently won business from the Federal Aviation Administration to help the agency upgrade networks used to manage US airspace. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, said the lesson is not about chief executives taking political positions. "The lesson here is that there is no honour among thieves. These are two mob bosses that have had a parting of ways. And now they are going to take each other down," Sonnenfeld told CNN. Harvard Business School's George noted that Musk and Trump had been acting like "best bros" just days earlier. "The lesson here is that you can either work in government or run your business," George said. "But you can't do both." - CNN
RNZ News
15 hours ago
- RNZ News
From bros to foes: how the unlikely Trump-Musk relationship imploded
By Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason, Reuters Donald Trump (L) and Elon Musk's unlikely political marriage exploded in a fiery public divorce on 5 June, 2025. Photo: SAUL LOEB and Jim WATSON / AFP When Donald Trump met privately with White House officials on Wednesday, there was little to suggest that the US president was close to a public break with Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman who helped him win a second term in office. Two White House officials familiar with the matter said Trump expressed confusion and frustration in the meeting about Musk's attacks on his sweeping tax and spending bill. But he held back, the officials said, because he wanted to preserve Musk's political and financial support ahead of the 2026 midterm election. By Thursday afternoon, Trump's mood had shifted. He had not spoken to Musk since the attacks began and was fuming over what one White House aide described as a "completely batshit" tirade by the Tesla CEO on X, his social media platform. On Friday, a White House official said Trump was not interested in talking to Musk and no phone call between the two men was planned for the day. Musk had blasted Trump's tax bill as fiscally reckless and a "disgusting abomination." He vowed to oppose any Republican lawmaker who supported it. The bill would fulfill many of Trump's priorities while adding, according to the Congressional Budget Office, $2.4 trillion to the $36.2-trillion US public debt. Privately, Trump had called Musk volatile. On Thursday, he told his team, it was time to take the gloves off. Sitting next to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters he was "very disappointed" in his former adviser. Musk quickly hit back on social media, and the back-and-forth devolved from there. "The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's government subsidies and contracts," Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site. Within minutes, Musk said it might be time to create a new political party and endorsed a post on X from Ian Miles Cheong, a prominent Musk supporter and right-wing activist, calling for Trump's impeachment. The depth of the Trump-Musk relationship at its height was unprecedented in Washington - a sitting president granting a billionaire tech CEO access and influence inside the White House and throughout his government. Musk spent nearly $300 million backing Trump's campaign and other Republicans last year. For months, Musk played both insider and disruptor - shaping policy conversations behind the scenes, amplifying Trump's agenda to millions online, and attacking the bureaucracy and federal spending through his self-styled Department of Government Efficiency. Just last week, Trump hosted a farewell for Musk and declared that "Elon is really not leaving". Now he had not only left but had turned into a top critic. Hours after Trump's Oval Office remarks, a third White House official expressed surprise at Musk's turnaround. It "caught the president and the entire West Wing off guard," she said. Musk did not respond to emails seeking comment about the downturn in relations. His super PAC spending group, America PAC, and spokeswoman Katie Miller did not respond to calls and texts requesting comment. In a statement, the White House called the breakup an "unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted". The Musk-Trump breakup sent Tesla's stock price plunging 14 percent on Thursday and drove uncertainty among Trump's allies in Congress, who are working to pass the monumental spending package that Democrats and a small number of vocal Republicans oppose. Tesla shares clawed back from steep losses on Friday. The breakup could reshape both men's futures. For Trump, losing Musk's backing threatens his growing influence among tech donors, social media audiences, and younger male voters - key groups that may now be harder to reach. It could also complicate fundraising ahead of next year's midterm elections. For Musk, the stakes are potentially even higher. The break risks intensified scrutiny of his business practices that could jeopardise government contracts and invite regulatory probes, which might threaten his companies' profits. Some of Musk's friends and associates were stunned by the fallout, with a number of them only recently expressing confidence that the partnership would endure, according to two other sources familiar with the dynamics. The split had been simmering for weeks, said the first two White House officials, but the breaking point was over personnel: Trump's decision to pull his nomination of Jared Isaacman, Musk's hand-picked candidate to be NASA administrator. "He was not happy" about Isaacman, one of the White House officials said of Musk. Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and close Musk ally, was seen as key to advancing Musk's vision for space exploration and commercial space ventures. After his nomination was scuttled, Isaacman posted on X: "I am incredibly grateful to President Trump, the Senate and all those who supported me." The move was viewed within the administration as a direct snub to Musk, the two officials said, signaling a loss of political clout and deepening the rift between him and Trump's team. Before the Isaacman episode, top White House aides behind the scenes had already begun limiting Musk's influence, quietly walking back his authority over staffing and budget decisions. Trump himself reinforced that message in early March, telling his cabinet that department secretaries, not Musk, had the final say over agency operations. At the same time, Musk began to hint that his time in government would come to a close, while expressing frustration at times that he could not more aggressively cut spending. His threats and complaints about Trump's bill grew louder, but inside the White House, few believed they would seriously alter the course of the legislation - even as some worried about the fallout on the midterms from Musk's warnings to cut political spending, the first two White House officials said. Still, a fourth White House official dismissed the impact of Musk's words on the president's signature bill. "We're very confident," he said. "No one has changed their minds." But there was bafflement at the White House at how a relationship that only last week had been celebrated in the Oval Office had taken such a turn. Time will tell whether the rift can be repaired. - Reuters
