Hedge Funds Reversed Oil Bets at Record Pace After Trump Tariffs
Hedge funds reversed their position on oil at the fastest pace on record as US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs against major trade partners, threatening to cripple global energy demand.
Money managers slashed their net-long position on Brent by 162,344 lots to 155,838 lots in the week ended April 8, the biggest drop in data going back to 2011, according to figures from ICE Futures Europe. Meanwhile, long-only bets on West Texas Intermediate fell to the lowest since 2009, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission show.
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Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How the Musk-Trump feud became an online battle like no other
What happens when the world's most powerful man and the world's richest man - both accomplished attention-seekers - clash on the internet? We're finding out in real time. This week, billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump took to their respective social platforms to sling mud at the other after a fallout over federal spending. What started as a volley of barbs snowballed into a feud involving multiple social platforms and millions of onlookers, as everyone from big-name politicians to no-name meme accounts hurried to offer their takes and declare their allegiances. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The split could have profound real-world consequences, as both men show their willingness to leverage financial and political power to hit back at the other. It also illustrates how quickly a conflict can escalate when it is fanned by algorithmic feeds and the demands of the attention economy, which prizes outrage and relishes a high-profile feud. While Trump and Musk circle their wagons, drumming up support and smearing the other through posts on X and Truth Social, millions of smaller content creators stand to capitalize on the attention the feud generates. On Thursday afternoon, the number of active users on the X and Truth Social mobile apps both reached 90-day highs, according to preliminary estimates by Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm. Between 2 and 6 p.m. Eastern time that day, the firm estimates that X usage was up 54 percent compared with the previous seven days, while Truth Social was up more than 400 percent, albeit from a much lower baseline. 'Public feuds like this drive social media engagement like crazy,' said Casey Fiesler, a professor of information science at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies social media ethics. 'It's high-octane content because it's easy to meme and very algorithmically rewarded.' Musk, whose business empire includes X as well as Tesla, rocket company SpaceX and artificial intelligence start-up xAI, kicked off the fight on Tuesday when he posted on X to criticize a congressional spending bill backed by the president: 'This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,' he wrote. The post was viewed more than 141 million times and sparked a flurry of commentary on X and elsewhere online. Gen Z internet personality Lil Tay, known for over-the-top posts flaunting luxury goods, got 2.8 million views on a reply clapping back at Musk for his former support of Trump, while far-right commentator Charlie Kirk referenced Musk's 'tweet heard around the world' in a post funneling viewers to Apple Podcasts to stream his talk show. Over the next two days, Musk continued to take shots at Trump on X, at one point posting a poll asking whether America needed a new centrist political party, while Trump told White House reporters that his and Musk's relationship was on the rocks. Then on Thursday, Musk escalated the back-and-forth by claiming in a post on X that Trump is implicated in the Epstein files, documents that allegedly contain the names of people who consorted with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually assault minors. The post exploded, drawing almost 200 million views in a day and stoking a second wave of content from politicians, creators and meme-makers. A post from an anonymous X user, liked by 192,300 people, mused: 'Who gets JD Vance in the divorce?' The vice president soon provided an answer, posting that Trump has 'earned the trust of the movement he leads.' On X, where Musk's changes to the platform's verification feature have blurred the lines between real public figures and paid subscribers, fake politicians joined the fray. 'Every time I smell a movement, I know you'll be next to it,' came a reply to Vance from an account for Rep. Jack Kimble - a fictitious congressman with more than 93,000 followers whose posts have often fooled social media users. Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon seized the moment to make headlines with his podcast, in which he called for Trump to seize SpaceX and perhaps even deport Musk. Politics creators such as Philip DeFranco took to TikTok with beat-by-beat breakdowns of the feud, while Musk's estranged daughter Vivian Wilson posted to her Instagram stories a clip of herself laughing, with the caption, 'I love being proven right,' possibly in reference to past comments criticizing her father and Trump. In the Reddit community r/politics, self-styled sleuths conducted deep dives into Epstein-related court filings, at times linking to books and YouTube series that claim to investigate Epstein's celebrity accomplices. Far-fetched conspiracy theories floated around X as users speculated whether Trump and Musk could be secretly working together toward some noble end. Critics of Musk and Trump delighted in the affair. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who at 35 is a social media star in her own right, was stopped by a reporter outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday and asked for her reaction to Trump and Musk's war of words. She was quick to spit an online catchphrase: 'Oh man, the girls are fighting, aren't they?' The clip spread quickly on TikTok, where it was boosted by left-leaning talking heads and news accounts. Academic research on online algorithms has shown that social feeds often prioritize content that elicits fear or rage. High-profile fights can boost the power and profiles of people involved, as with the infamous internet feuds between Kim Kardashian and Kanye West or influencers Trisha Paytas and Ethan Klein, said Fiesler. But trending conflicts are also a boon to the second-order creators, who jump to offer 'side takes,' playing off the argument of the day to drive traffic to their own products and profiles. A divisive court battle between actress Amber Heard and her ex-husband Johnny Depp, for instance, spawned its own media ecosystem, with creators and channels dedicated entirely to dissecting the feud - at times even falsifying or exaggerating information to keep viewers hooked. 'This [Musk-Trump feud] is half my TikTok feed right now,' Fiesler said. 'The more that people talk about it, the more people feel obligated to talk about it and take sides.' It's a dynamic the principals in this fight have long since mastered. Vance posted on X on Thursday a picture of himself with the popular podcaster and comedian Theo Von, with the tongue-in-cheek caption, 'Slow news day, what are we even going to talk about?' Musk reposted it, adding a 'laughter' emoji. Under Musk's ownership, X has lost advertisers and users turned off by his politics and lax approach to hate speech, with rivals such as Bluesky and Meta's Threads siphoning left-leaning users in particular. Now he risks alienating Trump loyalists. But in the meantime, even critics of his leadership of X acknowledged Thursday that it seemed to have 'the juice' - that is, it was driving the conversation - at least for the moment. 'A public blowup between the world's richest man and the president of the U.S. is hard for people to resist witnessing first-hand, even for those that may not regularly use X,' said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at eMarketer, a market research firm. 'That said, our media usage is so fragmented and we're being bombarded with the news from every channel that it's not likely to be significant or sustainable.' Truth Social, meanwhile, has become an increasingly important component of Trump's communication strategy, with the self-styled influencer-in-chief firing off a steady stream of posts - at times dozens a day - lauding his own actions or taking aim at rivals. White House employees and right-leaning creators then spread the posts to other platforms, broadening Truth Social's reach and influence even as the platform underperforms compared with X, Threads or Bluesky. (Sensor Tower estimates X has about 100 times more active users.) The Trump-Musk brouhaha exemplifies how online influencer culture has permeated politics, said Renée DiResta, a professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and the author of 'Invisible Rulers.' 'Online beefing is not about winning - it's a kind of performance,' she said. The interactive nature of social media allows the audience to get in on the action. 'We pick sides, cheer for our champion and keep the fight going. We make memes - we can grab some attention for ourselves and help shape the fight if we make good ones.' But what might be harmless fun in the case of celebrity gossip, she said, has a darker side when the warring parties are among the world's most powerful people. In a striking example, a threat from Trump on Thursday to cancel government contracts with SpaceX prompted Musk to reply that the company 'will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately' - a move that would have severed NASA's only means of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station. A pseudonymous X user who had fewer than 100 followers at the time replied to Musk's post, urging him to 'take a step back' and reconsider. Within hours, Musk responded: 'Good advice. Ok, we won't decommission Dragon.' The online bedlam prompted sports commentator Darren Rovell to revisit a tweet he posted in 2016 that has since become a meme: 'I feel bad for our country. But this is tremendous content.' Related Content To save rhinos, conservationists are removing their horns Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears
Gizmodo
an hour ago
- Gizmodo
Trump Threatens Musk with ‘Very Serious Consequences' if He Funds Democrats
Trump draws a line. The feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump seems to have gone from a full boil to a simmer over the weekend, but don't rule out the possibility of the heat getting turned up again. In a conversation with NBC News, Trump said he has no interest in making nice with Musk right now, but did make it clear that if the billionaire decides to switch parties and back Democratic candidates, 'he'll have to pay consequences for that.' Trump being Trump, he didn't explain what those potential retaliatory actions might be, just told NBC they will be 'very serious consequences.' Of course, it's not terribly hard to imagine the levers Trump might pull. He has already threatened to cancel the billions of dollars worth of government contracts that Musk's companies currently count on, and his close ally and former advisor, Steve Bannon, has encouraged Trump to investigate Musk as an 'illegal alien,' deport him, and seize control of his companies under the Defense Production Act. So, he's got some ideas to work with. Trump's threat of action against Musk certainly feels like a line drawn in the sand, but the President has otherwise not really escalated the beef since Musk threw the kitchen sink at him. In a series of now-deleted posts, Musk claimed that Trump appears in the Epstein files and has been withholding information in order to protect himself and supported the idea of impeaching the president whom he spent nearly $300 million trying to get into office. Musk took those posts down, but has continued to be critical of Trump. Trump rebuked the attacks in his conversation with NBC, calling the Epstein angle 'old news' and that he had 'nothing to do with' Epstein. 'That's called 'old news,' that's been old news, that has been talked about for years,' he said. Other than that, Trump has basically just decided to wash his hands of Musk—at least for the time being. When asked if his relationship with the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is over, Trump told NBC, 'I would assume so, yeah.' He also reiterated that he has no intention of speaking with Musk directly and said, 'I'm too busy doing other things' and 'I have no intention of speaking to him.' That remains pretty mild for a guy who is certainly capable of being a bomb thrower, but Trump might have a sense that he will come off better by easing off after Musk flew off the handle. A YouGov poll found that among Republicans, 71% would take his side compared to just 6% who said they would throw their backing behind Musk. Even if you expand the survey sample to include Democrats and Independents, Trump comes out ahead with 28% of support compared to just 8% for Musk (though notably, 52% said 'Neither,' so the 'a pox on both your houses' demographic is strong). Politico reported Sunday that aides representing both sides have spoken, and there is something of a mutual truce at the moment to stop the bomb-throwing—though it noted that neither Musk nor Trump wanted to stop. Seems like they are locked in a battle of restraint at the moment, which is not exactly a skill either of them is known to possess. We'll see who breaks the truce first.
Associated Press
an hour ago
- Associated Press
Mike Johnson downplays Musk's influence and says Republicans will pass Trump's tax and budget bill
With an uncharacteristically feistiness, Speaker Mike Johnson took clear sides Sunday in President Donald Trump's breakup with mega-billionaire Elon Musk. The Republican House leader and staunch Trump ally said Musk's criticism of the GOP's massive tax and budget policy bill will not derail the measure, and he downplayed Musk's influence over the GOP-controlled Congress. 'I didn't go out to craft a piece of legislation to please the richest man in the world,' Johnson said on ABC's 'This Week.' 'What we're trying to do is help hardworking Americans who are trying to provide for their families and make ends meet,' Johnson insisted. Johnson said he has exchanged text messages with Musk since the former chief of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency came out against the GOP bill. Musk called it an 'abomination' that would add to U.S. debts and threaten economic stability. He urged voters to flood Capitol Hill with calls to vote against the measure, which is pending in the Senate after clearing the House. His criticism sparked an angry social media back-and-forth with Trump, who told reporters over the weekend that he has no desire to repair his relationship with Musk. The speaker was dismissive of Musk's threats to finance opponents — even Democrats — of Republican members who back Trump's bill. 'We've got almost no calls to the offices, any Republican member of Congress,' Johnson said. 'And I think that indicates that people are taking a wait and see attitude. Some who may be convinced by some of his arguments, but the rest understand: this is a very exciting piece of legislation.' Johnson argued that Musk still believes 'that our policies are better for human flourishing. They're better for the US economy. They're better for everything that he's involved in with his innovation and job creation and entrepreneurship.' The speaker and other Republicans, including Trump's White House budget chief, continued their push back Sunday against forecasts that their tax and budget plans will add to annual deficits and thus balloon a national debt already climbing toward $40 trillion. Johnson insisted that Musk has bad information, and the speaker disputed the forecasts of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that scores budget legislation. The bill would extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts, cut spending and reduce some other levies but also leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance and spike deficits by $2.4 trillion over the decade, according to the CBO's analysis. The speaker countered with arguments Republicans have made for decades: That lower taxes and spending cuts would spur economic growth that ensure deficits fall. Russell Vought, who leads the White House Office of Budget and Management, said on Fox News Sunday that CBO analysts base their models of 'artificial baselines.' Because the 2017 tax law set the lower rates to expire, CBO's cost estimates, Vought argued, presuming a return to the higher rates before that law went into effect. Vought acknowledged CBO's charge from Congress is to analyze legislation and current law as it is written. But he said the office could issue additional analyses, implying it would be friendlier to GOP goals. Asked whether the White House would ask for alternative estimates, Vought again put the burden on CBO, repeating that congressional rules allow the office to publish more analysis. Other Republicans, meanwhile, approached the Trump-Musk battle cautiously. 'As a former professional fighter, I learned a long time ago, don't get between two fighters,' said Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin on CNN's 'State of the Union.' He even compared the two billionaire businessmen to a married couple. 'President Trump is a friend of mine but I don't need to get, I can have friends that have disagreements,' Mullin said. 'My wife and I dearly love each other and every now and then, well actually quite often, sometimes she disagrees with me, but that doesn't mean that we can't stay focused on what's best for our family. Right now, there may be a disagreement but we're laser focused on what is best for the American people.' —- Associated Press journalist Gary Fields contributed from Washington.
