Trump, Musk in stunning live break-up - Tesla shares shares lose $100b in value
Shares in Tesla plummeted more than 15% on Thursday, losing more than US$100 billion ($1.65b) in market capitalisation, as a spat deepened between US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the electric car company's CEO.
Trump said he asked 'crazy' Elon Musk to leave his administration and threatened to take
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NZ Herald
an hour ago
- NZ Herald
Salvadoran migrant returned to US, charged with human smuggling
The Salvadoran migrant at the heart of a row over US President Donald Trump's hardline deportation policies was returned to the United States on Saturday and arrested on human smuggling charges. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was brought back to the US from El Salvador and charged with trafficking undocumented migrants,
1News
an hour 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.'
Techday NZ
3 hours ago
- Techday NZ
US-China chip export debate highlights risks for AI leadership
DeepSeek. TikTok. Taiwan. And a White House shake-up on AI rules. The spiralling US-China technology rivalry landed at the heart of Johns Hopkins University last week, as a panel of top experts and policymakers took to the stage to debate whether restricting exports of advanced semiconductors to China can help the US maintain its edge in the race for artificial intelligence. The discussion, hosted by Open to Debate in partnership with the SNF Agora Institute, comes at a critical time. In Washington, the Trump administration has announced plans to roll back the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule and introduce new chip export controls targeting China – a move seen by many as a signal that the technology contest between the two superpowers is only intensifying. On one side of the Johns Hopkins debate were Lindsay Gorman, managing director at the German Marshall Fund's Technology Program, and former CIA officer and congressman Will Hurd. They argued the answer is yes: semiconductor controls can give the US a real advantage in the AI race. Gorman pointed to DeepSeek, a Chinese AI model whose CEO has publicly lamented the impact of advanced chip bans. "Money has never been the problem for us. Bans on shipments of advanced chips are the problem. And they have to consume twice the power to achieve the same results," she quoted, highlighting how China's AI advances still depend heavily on imported hardware. "The United States has significant hard computing power advantages – the ability to produce high-end chips, designed specifically for training AI models," Gorman told the audience. She argued that, together with its allies, the US controls a "strategic choke point" on computing power. "Properly implemented controls can have an effect and also have an increasing and compounding effect over time in retarding China's AI advantages and giving the United States a head start," she explained. Will Hurd, who also served on OpenAI's board before running for US president, compared the AI contest to the nuclear arms race. "Artificial intelligence is the equivalent of nuclear fission. Nuclear fission controlled gives you nuclear power… uncontrolled, nuclear weapons can kill everybody," he said. Hurd emphasised the importance of first-mover advantage, warning that the US cannot afford to lose its technological lead. He also highlighted a lack of reciprocity in the tech relationship between the two countries. "Chinese companies like Baidu, DJI, and TikTok operate freely in the US, but American companies are not allowed to operate in China," Hurd pointed out. "If there was a level of reciprocity between our two countries, we wouldn't be here having this debate about chip controls." Yet, on the opposing side, former senior US diplomat Susan Thornton and technology strategist Paul Triolo insisted the US could not outpace China in AI simply by tightening export controls. Triolo argued that the controls are "not working and will not lead to US dominance in AI", describing them as a blunt instrument that creates confusion for industry and disrupts global supply chains. "Most experts believe that Chinese companies are only three months behind US leaders in developing advanced AI models," Triolo said, suggesting any technological gap is vanishingly slim. Thornton, who spent decades at the heart of US-China diplomacy, warned of unintended consequences. "The main thing we should be asking ourselves about this question… is what is the cost benefit of US policy actions?" she said. "We have to face the reality that China is already building AI… a third of the world's top AI scientists are Chinese. China is one third of the entire global technology market. So it's clearly a player." She cautioned that blocking China from critical technology could backfire, hurting US companies, alienating allies and raising the risks around Taiwan, the global centre of advanced chip manufacturing. "Certainly, the one thing we need to do is avoid going to war," Thornton warned. "Taiwan, the most sensitive issue in US-China relations, has now been dragged right into the middle of this AI issue because they're the place that produces all the cutting-edge chips that we're trying to control." Audience members pressed the panel on whether international collaboration on AI safety was possible, and whether the US could ever match China's data advantage, given the size of the Chinese population and its permissive data environment. Hurd conceded that "the US will always have less data because we have a little thing called civil liberties," but argued that superior algorithms and privacy-protective machine learning could level the playing field. For Triolo, the dynamic nature of the technology means that attempts to wall off China are self-defeating. "There are many ways to get to different ends. The controls have forced Chinese companies to work together, develop innovations, and become more competitive both domestically and globally," he said. Gorman, in closing, rejected what she called "a defeatism that says America can't out-compete China or slow its progress". "Our companies are doing well. There isn't an issue here with demand, it's with supply. Doing better means that we have to throw what we can at this problem now with a smart application of tools," she argued. But Thornton had the last word, urging caution. "Making the AI competition with China a zero-sum game, not only will not work, it is dangerous," she said. "We should focus on the things that are going to matter to our children and their children, which is the long-term AI competition, which if not constrained and bounded by international agreements and by cooperation among countries… it'll be a very dangerous world."
