Europe now: The reality of life in the shadows of Putin & Trump
The Trump administration has thrown European security and the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine into disarray. In Part I of Rules of engagement, Andrew Gunn reports from Kyiv. Tomorrow, the UK and Trump appeasement. Wednesday, rearming Germany.
I am briefly woken by the wail of the air raid siren, but manage to get back to sleep. Call it disassociation, or what you will, but like many others in Kyiv, I have given up on taking shelter every time I
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RNZ News
2 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
Scoop
19 hours ago
- Scoop
The Inevitable Souring: Elon Musk Falls Out With Donald Trump
Trumps response to Musks latest gobbet of accusation proved almost melancholic. I dont mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. He went on to praise one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. Sandpit politics is rarely edifying and grown toddlers taking their fists to each other is unlikely to interest. But when they feature US President Donald Trump and the world's wealthiest man, the picture alters. Disputes are bound to be on scale, rippling in their consequences. No crystal ball was required regarding the eventual sundering of the relationship between Trump and Elon Musk. Here were noisy, brash egos who had formed a rancid union in American politics, with Musk lending his resources and public machinery to The Donald knowing he could also have sway in the Trump administration as a 'special government employee'. That sway took the form of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), a crude attempt to right the wrongs of misspending in government while politicising the public service. Awaking from a narcotised daze, Musk decided to focus on his floundering companies, notably Tesla, and step back from the inferno. In doing so, he expected 'to remain a friend and adviser, and if there's anything the president wants me to do, I'm at this service.' Gazing at the raging inferno that is Trumpian policy, that convivial attitude has all but evaporated. For one thing, Trump's proposed tax breaks and increases in defence spending, espoused in his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, seemed to undermine the very premise of DOGE and its zealous mission of reducing government spending. The legislation promises to slash $1.5 trillion in government spending but increase the debt limit by $4 trillion. 'I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly,' Musk said in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning last month. Such a plan merely inflated, not reduced, the budget deficit. 'I think a bill can be big or beautiful. I don't know if it can be both.' This month, Musk got even tetchier. His temper had frayed. 'I'm sorry, I just can't stand it anymore,' he barked on his X platform on June 3. 'This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.' He continued to heap shame on members of Congress 'who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.' On June 5, Trump expressed his disappointment 'because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill', leaving open the possibility that the billionaire might be suffering from 'Trump derangement syndrome.' Musk had 'only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the [electric vehicle] mandate.' A blow was in the offing, coming in the form of a post on Truth Social: 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised Biden didn't do it!' Musk's embittered retort: 'Such an obvious lie. So sad.' He also proposed, in light of the President's announcement, the decommissioning of Space X's Dragon spacecraft, vehicles used by NASA to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The ripples were finally getting violent. Musk then decided to do what he called dropping 'the really big bomb'. Trump, he revealed, 'is in the Epstein files. This is the real reason they have not been made public.' Given Musk's estranged relationship with reality and its facets, this can only be taken at face value. It's a matter of record that Trump, along with a fat who's who of power, knew the late Jeffrey Epstein, financier and convicted sex offender, for many years. The trove of government documents known as The Epstein Files has offered the easily titillated some manna but, thus far, few bombs. On February 27, US Attorney General Pamela Bondi released what were described as the 'first phase' of files relating to the financier and 'his exploitation of over 250 underage girls at his homes in New York and Florida, among other locations.' In an interview with Fox News on February 21, Bondi revealed that Epstein's client list lay 'on my desk right now.' Trump's response to Musk's latest gobbet of accusation proved almost melancholic. 'I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago.' He went on to praise 'one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress.' In characteristically bratty fashion, Musk went on to share a post agreeing with the proposition that Trump be impeached and replaced by the Vice President, J.D. Vance, advocate 'a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle' (a touching billionaire's wish), and predict 'a recession in the second half of this year' caused by Trump's global tariff regime. In the scheme of things, Trump has survived impeachments, prosecutions, litigation, crowned by a divided US electorate that gave him a majority in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. Like a Teflon coated mafia don, he has made compromising people a minor art. Musk, compromised in his support and having second thoughts, can only go noisily into the confused night.
NZ Herald
20 hours ago
- NZ Herald
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
