Latest news with #Musk-affiliated
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Business Standard
a day ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Tesla tanks $380 bn after Musk calls Trump's bill 'disgusting abomination'
What began as a high-powered bromance between two of the world's most polarising men—Donald Trump and Elon Musk—has now exploded into an all-out, ego-fuelled political and financial war. The result? A jaw-dropping $380 billion gone from Tesla's market cap. The drama unfolded after Musk publicly shredded Trump's new tax-and-spending bill on X, calling it a 'disgusting abomination.' Trump, never one to stay silent, fired back with a threat: he'd pull federal contracts from Tesla and SpaceX—Musk's prized ventures. The market didn't wait to pick a side. Tesla shares tanked 14 per cent in a single day, erasing $150 billion in value—the worst one-day loss in the company's history. Add to that a 30 per cent plunge this year alone, and Tesla now holds the unenviable title of 2025's worst-performing large-cap stock. Billionaire bromance gone bust Just months ago, Musk was seen as a key behind-the-scenes supporter of Trump's return bid. Now, the bromance has turned to bad blood. Tesla, once the world's eighth most valuable company, has slipped to tenth, clocking in at $917 billion. For context, that's more than ₹31 trillion down the drain. It couldn't have come at a worse time. Tesla is already under pressure—from slowing EV demand and global regulatory heat, to questions over Musk's links with far-right groups. Meanwhile, other Musk-affiliated companies are also feeling the aftershocks. SpaceX investor Destiny Tech100 plunged 13 per cent. And according to Ortex, short sellers raked in nearly $4 billion on Thursday alone—the second-biggest one-day haul ever. 'You mean the man who has lost his mind?' Behind closed doors, the White House reportedly tried to broker a truce with a call between Trump and Musk. That ship seems to have sailed. When asked about the possibility, Trump said: 'You mean the man who has lost his mind?' He added he wasn't 'particularly' interested in speaking to Musk. But Trump didn't stop there. In a Truth Social post, he wrote: '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 that Biden didn't do it!' According to him, Musk's outrage stems from the proposed rollback of the EV mandate. 'Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him to leave. I took away his EV Mandate… and he just went CRAZY!' Musk, never one to hold back, retaliated with a scorcher. He accused Trump of ungratefulness after his $300 million campaign donation, credited himself for Trump's 2024 win, and dragged Epstein into the mix. His closing mic-drop on X: 'Have a nice day, DJT!' Tesla's political nightmare As the war of words escalates, the fallout is no longer just personal—it's political. Musk recently quit his advisory role in the Trump camp, reportedly under shareholder pressure. But his abrupt exit has triggered political tremors across Tesla's empire. With Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink reliant on federal contracts and regulatory goodwill, a souring relationship with Washington could prove costly. Meanwhile, Apple isn't immune to the political storm either. Its market cap has slipped 20 per cent this year to $2.99 trillion, pushing it to the third place globally. Trade tensions, AI rivals, and China's slowdown are all to blame. 'Junior high school fight' So where does this all go from here? Dan Ives of Wedbush summed it up, saying, 'It's a junior high school fight where these best friends are now becoming frenemies.' 'It's a Twilight Zone situation for all investors... The last thing they want is for Trump to go from being Musk's biggest cheerleader to his biggest threat," he was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. And that's not just rhetoric. If Trump's tax bill passes and EV credits disappear earlier than expected, JPMorgan estimates Tesla could lose $1.2 billion in profits. For an automaker already under pressure, that's no small blow. Paul Stanley of Granite Bay Wealth Management didn't sugar-coat it either: 'Given the inherent powers of the office of the presidency, I don't see how this could be anything but negative for Tesla and Musk.' Robotaxis to the rescue? In the midst of all this chaos, Tesla is gearing up for a bold pivot. On June 12, it will finally unveil its long-anticipated robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. Is this Musk's comeback moment? Dan Ives thinks so—'The robotaxi launch marks the start of Tesla's next growth chapter.' Still, he cautions it's a bumpy road ahead. 'This is definitely a little white-knuckle period for Tesla investors.'
Telegraph
07-04-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The mainstream media loathes Elon Musk. History will be a better judge
'At some point, he's going to be going back … I'd keep him as long as I could keep him', said US President Donald Trump of Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief, at an Oval Office press conference last week. The President returned to the theme on Thursday, as he said 'I want Elon to stay as long as possible,' but that 'Doge will stay active' long after he eventually departs. This reflects what Trump always intended for both Musk, who presides over six companies while also serving as a special adviser to the president, and for DOGE, a government agency built by executive order on the previously little-known United States Digital Service. From the start Musk was meant to be a transient part of Trump's administration and broader movement to reset and rein in the US government. But the mainstream media, which has long tried to discredit Musk and undermine his close relationship with Trump, has insinuated that his eventual departure will be the result of tensions within the administration. This has included reported complaints from cabinet members who believe that DOGE cuts are threatening their agencies' operations, and from Republican members of Congress who have faced pushback and protests from constituents angered by DOGE cuts in federal government spending and employment. Musk's operations have been blamed for sub-par Republican performance in a handful of special elections. These include the sound defeat of a Republican-backed candidate for an open seat on Wisconsin's elected state supreme court, for whom Musk heavily campaigned and to whose campaign Musk or Musk-affiliated political organisations donated over $20 million. Nevertheless, Musk, who has played a leading role at DOGE as a 'special government employee' since Trump's second inauguration on January 20, is legally eligible to hold his appointment for only 130 days, or until around May 30. Despite some speculation that Trump would find a way around the 130-day restriction, no plan has emerged. DOGE itself, which has a mandate to cut $2 trillion from US government spending – or around one-third of the current annual budget and an amount that could eliminate the US's current deficit – remains set to expire, or, as Musk has put it, 'delete itself', on July 4, 2026, the 250 th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. To date, DOGE's website maintains that it has eliminated an estimated $140 billion in federal government spending through an array of means, including 'asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reduction'. The exact figure is disputed, but widespread media reports have substantiated many of these measures, which are also recorded as line items in databases available on the DOGE website. Musk claims that DOGE is on track to eliminate up to $1 trillion by the time of his pre-scheduled departure in May. Some budget analysts are sceptical that he can do so without touching entitlement spending like Social Security, a measure that would be politically unpopular and could endanger the Republicans' House majority in the 2026 midterm elections. Some additional cuts will also depend on Congress, which must approve many far-ranging measures to cut costs. These include the abolition of government departments and agencies, such as USAID and the Department of Education, which can be reduced in size and defunded by executive action, but not dismantled. Judicial intervention has countermanded – usually temporarily and subject to review by higher courts – some of DOGE's sackings and funding freezes. However, with DOGE Caucuses organised in both houses of Congress specifically to promote its operations, Musk's efforts are likely to be more popular than the mainstream media claims. Despite relentless attacks, a poll in February found that 72 per cent of Americans agree that there should be a government agency 'focused on efficiency,' while seven in 10 believe that government is 'filled with waste, fraud, and inefficiency' and 77 per cent say they support a 'full examination of all government expenses'. Whether he stays on the job beyond May 30 or not, Musk may well be able to claim that he has accomplished the greatest reduction in government spending and staffing since the mass demobilisation at the end of the Second World War. Bear in mind that, while these economies have been implemented over the past ten weeks, Musk led his SpaceX company to save the astronauts stranded on the International Space Station, began a technical analysis to determine how a journalist was added to a high-level group chat of Trump administration officers, and suffered a national boycott and domestic terrorist campaign against Tesla, the electric car company he was celebrated for running until he threw in his lot with Trump. 'This is a revolution', Musk recently told an interviewer. 'It might be the biggest revolution in the government since the original revolution … Are we going to get a lot of complaints along the way? Absolutely.' There have been no shortage of complaints, particularly from those with a vested interest in the continuation of America's government spending gravy train. But a nation that finds itself $36 trillion in debt should be grateful for Musk's efforts. Paul du Quenoy is a historian and president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The mainstream media loathes Elon Musk. History will be a better judge
'At some point, he's going to be going back … I'd keep him as long as I could keep him', said US President Donald Trump of Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief, at an Oval Office press conference last week. The President returned to the theme on Thursday, as he said 'I want Elon to stay as long as possible,' but that 'Doge will stay active' long after he eventually departs. This reflects what Trump always intended for both Musk, who presides over six companies while also serving as a special adviser to the president, and for DOGE, a government agency built by executive order on the previously little-known United States Digital Service. From the start Musk was meant to be a transient part of Trump's administration and broader movement to reset and rein in the US government. But the mainstream media, which has long tried to discredit Musk and undermine his close relationship with Trump, has insinuated that his eventual departure will be the result of tensions within the administration. This has included reported complaints from cabinet members who believe that DOGE cuts are threatening their agencies' operations, and from Republican members of Congress who have faced pushback and protests from constituents angered by DOGE cuts in federal government spending and employment. Musk's operations have been blamed for sub-par Republican performance in a handful of special elections. These include the sound defeat of a Republican-backed candidate for an open seat on Wisconsin's elected state supreme court, for whom Musk heavily campaigned and to whose campaign Musk or Musk-affiliated political organisations donated over $20 million. Nevertheless, Musk, who has played a leading role at DOGE as a 'special government employee' since Trump's second inauguration on January 20, is legally eligible to hold his appointment for only 130 days, or until around May 30. Despite some speculation that Trump would find a way around the 130-day restriction, no plan has emerged. DOGE itself, which has a mandate to cut $2 trillion from US government spending – or around one-third of the current annual budget and an amount that could eliminate the US's current deficit – remains set to expire, or, as Musk has put it, 'delete itself', on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. To date, DOGE's website maintains that it has eliminated an estimated $140 billion in federal government spending through an array of means, including 'asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reduction'. The exact figure is disputed, but widespread media reports have substantiated many of these measures, which are also recorded as line items in databases available on the DOGE website. Musk claims that DOGE is on track to eliminate up to $1 trillion by the time of his pre-scheduled departure in May. Some budget analysts are sceptical that he can do so without touching entitlement spending like Social Security, a measure that would be politically unpopular and could endanger the Republicans' House majority in the 2026 midterm elections. Some additional cuts will also depend on Congress, which must approve many far-ranging measures to cut costs. These include the abolition of government departments and agencies, such as USAID and the Department of Education, which can be reduced in size and defunded by executive action, but not dismantled. Judicial intervention has countermanded – usually temporarily and subject to review by higher courts – some of DOGE's sackings and funding freezes. However, with DOGE Caucuses organised in both houses of Congress specifically to promote its operations, Musk's efforts are likely to be more popular than the mainstream media claims. Despite relentless attacks, a poll in February found that 72 per cent of Americans agree that there should be a government agency 'focused on efficiency,' while seven in 10 believe that government is 'filled with waste, fraud, and inefficiency' and 77 per cent say they support a 'full examination of all government expenses'. Whether he stays on the job beyond May 30 or not, Musk may well be able to claim that he has accomplished the greatest reduction in government spending and staffing since the mass demobilisation at the end of the Second World War. Bear in mind that, while these economies have been implemented over the past ten weeks, Musk led his SpaceX company to save the astronauts stranded on the International Space Station, began a technical analysis to determine how a journalist was added to a high-level group chat of Trump administration officers, and suffered a national boycott and domestic terrorist campaign against Tesla, the electric car company he was celebrated for running until he threw in his lot with Trump. 'This is a revolution', Musk recently told an interviewer. 'It might be the biggest revolution in the government since the original revolution … Are we going to get a lot of complaints along the way? Absolutely.' There have been no shortage of complaints, particularly from those with a vested interest in the continuation of America's government spending gravy train. But a nation that finds itself $36 trillion in debt should be grateful for Musk's efforts. Paul du Quenoy is a historian and president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Wisconsin Supreme Court race passes $90 million in spending: Nonprofit law institute
Spending in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which had already set a record for the most expensive state supreme court race in American history, has passed $90 million as of Monday, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit law institute. That $90 million includes more than $40 million total spent by the liberal candidate, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, and groups supporting her -- and almost $50 million total spent by the conservative candidate Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel and groups supporting him. Groups affiliated with Elon Musk, President Donald Trump's closest adviser and the billionaire owner of Tesla, have spent almost $20 million in the race supporting Schimel. The Musk-affiliated America PAC has spent more than $12 million, while another group linked to him, Building America's Future, has spent almost $6 million. MORE: Video Elon Musk visits Wisconsin ahead of high-stakes Supreme Court race Musk has separately given $2 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, which is supporting Schimel. Musk has cast the race as "a vote for which party controls the House of Representatives" and has implied "the future of civilization" is at stake. On Sunday, the tech billionaire also controversially gave away two $1 million checks to attendees at a rally in his latest effort to support Schimel. Crawford has received significant support as well. Major liberal donors such as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Democratic donor George Soros have given money to the Wisconsin Democratic Party, and the state party has donated around $2 million to Crawford. MORE: Musk hands out $1M checks after efforts to block the giveaways in court are rejected According to the Brennan Center's tally, Crawford's own campaign has spent more than $22 million; Schimel's has spent over $11 million. The nonprofit says that the previous record for spending in a state supreme court race was in Wisconsin's 2023 state supreme court election, when $56 million was spent. The high-profile election will be held on Tuesday and will help determine the ideological bent of the court, which currently leans liberal, ahead of potential cases on hot-button issues such as redistricting and abortion rights. "Across the country, state supreme court elections have been getting more attention, and more money, as people increasingly realize that these courts are deciding some of the highest stakes legal fights today. But even with the growing attention on these races nationally, what is happening in Wisconsin is unlike anything any other state has seen," Douglas Keith, senior counsel in the Brennan Center's Judiciary Program told ABC News in an email. Keith said the $90 million spent on the Supreme Court race make it look more like a competitive race for the U.S. Senate "than the relatively quiet judicial elections of just a few years ago." MORE: Florida State Sen. Randy Fine says he doesn't think he disagrees with Trump on anything "All of this spending, and the attack ads that come with it, make it much harder for the public to view judges as doing something different than raw politics, which is troubling at a time when it is just so important that the public can trust that courts are able to serve as a meaningful check on the political branches," Keith said. As of Monday, around 644,000 people in Wisconsin have voted early in person or by mail, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Wisconsin Supreme Court race passes $90 million in spending: Nonprofit law institute originally appeared on
New York Times
18-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
This Election Will Be a Crucial Test of Musk's Power
Elon Musk has set his sights, and spent tens of millions of dollars, on being involved in national and international elections and politics. Now his focus has turned to a U.S. state election: the race to fill a crucial seat that will determine control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That election is scheduled for April 1 (early voting begins on Tuesday), and Mr. Musk is supporting the conservative candidate Brad Schimel over the liberal candidate Susan Crawford. A victory for Judge Schimel would flip the court from liberal to conservative control, with potentially enormous implications for access to voting, legislative districts, abortion and more. The prospect of a billionaire with outsize influence over the federal government also seeking to dictate the direction of state-level democracy should be profoundly alarming to anyone committed to federalism, a core constitutional value. Federalism is especially important right now. With unified Republican control in Washington, D.C., and a Congress that has been a willing participant in its own defenestration, states and state institutions are poised to become ever more critical sites for the preservation of rights and the rule of law. Mr. Musk's interjection started in January with an X post urging his followers to 'vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.' (The contest is nonpartisan, but it was clear what he meant: Vote for Judge Schimel.) He has since unleashed his spending juggernaut on the race: According to recent filings, his AmericaPAC has spent over $6.3 million on it, and the Musk-affiliated Building America's Future has spent another $4.3 million. Yet another Musk-affiliated PAC, Progress 2028, is airing deceptive ads that purport to support Judge Crawford but in fact appear designed to help Judge Schimel. Wisconsin's politics are as divided as those of any state, and the State Supreme Court has long been in the middle of them. Wisconsin has a Democratic governor and attorney general, a Republican-controlled legislature, and a 4-3 State Supreme Court with liberals currently in the majority. In November 2024, Mr. Trump won the state by just 29,000 votes — his narrowest victory in any battleground state — while the Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin was narrowly re-elected. For years, extreme gerrymandering produced an enormous Republican advantage in the State Legislature. But in 2023 — in another expensive and closely watched Supreme Court race — liberal Janet Protasiewicz beat conservative Dan Kelly to change the ideological balance of the high court. Later that year the new 4-3 majority found that the State Legislature's gerrymandered maps violated the State Constitution and needed to be redrawn. The new maps ultimately put in place, drafted by the Democratic governor and enacted by the Republican legislature, created the conditions of genuine democratic competition. The court's liberal majority has also issued rulings permitting ballot drop-boxes and overruling a 2022 decision that had barred their use; and, just last month, turning away (on standing grounds) a challenge to the state's in-person absentee voting procedures. These issues of state-level democracy are especially important in light of what happened in the state in 2020, when the state high court came within a single vote of endorsing the Trump campaign's outlandish claims of election fraud — the only state court to have seriously entertained such claims. Three of the court's sitting justices at the time would have considered throwing out hundreds of thousands of votes in heavily Democratic areas. The two candidates in this year's race, Judges Crawford and Schimel, are both sitting lower-court judges. Judge Crawford has been endorsed by the state Democratic Party, as well as the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin; Judge Schimel has been endorsed by the state Republican Party, anti-abortion groups, the N.R.A. — and now, Mr. Musk. Just as it has been difficult to disentangle Mr. Musk's personal financial motives from his ideological goals when it comes to dismantling the federal bureaucracy, it's not clear how much of his Wisconsin intervention is ideologically driven and how much may be more narrowly self-interested. In January — just a week before Mr. Musk's endorsement of Judge Schimel — Tesla sued the state of Wisconsin in a challenge to state dealership rules that may well end up before the State Supreme Court. Whether it's business interests or a desire to expand his influence by installing ideological allies in every conceivable position of power on the national, international and now state stage, Mr. Musk's effort to exert control over this election should be cause for alarm. The amount of power he is wielding seems flatly inconsistent with core precepts of political equality, government accountability and, above all, popular sovereignty. The particular stakes in Wisconsin are high: The State Supreme Court has two pending cases involving the enforceability of the state's 1849 ban on abortion. The state high court could also agree to hear a challenge to Wisconsin's congressional districts, which were unaffected by the 2023 ruling on state districts and continue to reflect an extreme partisan gerrymander, with six of the state's eight seats held by Republicans. And a changed court could revisit and perhaps even overrule the recent decision outlawing the previous state legislative maps — paving the way for restoration of Republican supermajorities in the Wisconsin legislature. We should understand Mr. Musk's interest in this race as an acknowledgment of the undeniable fact that a great deal of law and policy will continue to be made in the states, whatever happens in Washington. But his entry into the Wisconsin race could serve as a galvanizing moment for voters troubled by this billionaire's influence in our politics and a way to make their objections known.
