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Elon Musk in conflict with Trump · Elon Musk Podcast

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  Your ultimate authority for daily Elon Musk news.
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  Exploring the world's biggest ideas with your host Will
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  Walden. There's something new everyday.
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  Elon Musk helped finance Donald Trump's return to power with
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  nearly $288 million in donations.
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  Now, less than six months later, Musk is watching that investment
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  destabilize his whole empire. Now, the alliance between the
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  two men began as a mutual beneficial transaction.
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  Musk funneled money into Republican campaigns and super
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  PAC's, betting on Trump's re election to secure policy
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  advantages and also business leverage.
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  Tesla stocks surged after Trump's victory in November.
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  SpaceX faced fewer regulatory hurdles, and Musk's influence in
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  Washington reached a new peak. Now, after a sudden and ugly
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  public fallout, the billionaire is totally exposed.
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  Trump threatened to cancel federal contracts tied to Musk's
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  companies. That threat carries real
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  consequences because Musk relies heavily on government funding
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  and Trump has the tools to interfere.
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  Now the white households discretionary control over
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  billions in federal contracts and tax credits.
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  Trump reminded Musk of that power in a statement last week,
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  warning of very serious consequences if Musk supported
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  Democrats. Now, Musk hasn't endorsed anyone
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  for 2028, but he has hinted at starting his own third party
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  now. The comment, according to
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  sources close to the administration, irritated Donald
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  Trump, who views political loyalty as transactional.
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  Musk tried to dial things down over the weekend but deleted a
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  series of attacks he posted about Trump on X.
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  But the damage has already been spreading across Musk's business
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  empire. SpaceX and Tesla all feeling it.
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  But Tesla lost $34 billion in market value after the feud
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  became public, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
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  The loss is the second biggest single week decline in the
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  index's history. The sell off erased months of
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  gains and rattled Tesla shareholders, many of whom have
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  grown frustrated with Musk's political distractions.
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  And Tesla shares are down more than 20% this year, and its
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  quarterly profits fell 71% compared to the same period last
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  year. Analysts traced the slide to
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  slumping EV demand and political backlash.
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  And Trump's new tax plan aims to eliminate the $7500 EV credit,
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  which is a move that could cost Tesla $1.2 billion in annual
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  revenues, according to JP Morgan.
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  Tesla's financial downturn comes as Musk faces mounting federal
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  scrutiny. The National Highway Traffic
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  Safety Administration recently asked Tesla to provide detailed
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  plans for its robo taxi launch, citing safety concerns.
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  Now, the company has several active investigations related to
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  its Autopilot and Full Self Driving software going on.
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  And these probes began under the Biden administration but also
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  remain ongoing under Trump. And if Trump decides to increase
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  pressure, he has tools to stall permits or ramp up regulatory
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  reviews. That creates more unnecessary
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  uncertainty for Tesla at a moment when investors are
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  already uneasy. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is
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  attempting to shift public focus back to the product side.
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  Tesla is preferring to unveil his robotaxi in Austin this
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  week, and Musk has teased this event on X, claiming the company
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  is now testing self driving. Model Y is on the streets.
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  He hopes the launch will improve sentiment around Tesla and
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  rebuild investor confidence, But internal pressure is mounting.
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  A coalition of activist shareholders sent a letter last
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  week to Tesla's board chair demanding that must commit at
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  least 40 hours per week to Tesla alone, and the group accused him
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  of neglecting his duties while chasing political ambitions and
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  running unrelated businesses. Brad Lander, who overseas the
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  New York City public pension system, criticized Musk's recent
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  actions after Thursday's Tesla stock drop.
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  The pension fund, which holds more than 3,000,000 Tesla
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  shares, lost over $150 million in one day.
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  Lander, who is also running for New York City mayor, called the
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  feud a disaster and said Musk's political obsession has created
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  direct financial harm to many investors.
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  His comments reflect growing discontent among institutional
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  shareholders, who once praised Musk's risk taking but now see
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  it as erratic and also see him as a reckless individual.
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  And beyond Tesla, Musk's other companies face similar threats
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  from Donald Trump. SpaceX relies on federal
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  contracts to launch NASA astronauts and Pentagon
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  satellites. Trump's threat to cancel those
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  contracts sent a chill through SpaceX.
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  Officials at NASA and the Department of Defense privately
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  acknowledged that terminating existing SpaceX deals would be
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  logistically difficult. Still, they have started urging
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  competitors to accelerate development as a hedge.
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  SpaceX remains the only active U.S. company with the ability to
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  launch humans into space, but officials say they do not want
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  to be held hostage by 1 supplier now.
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  Analyst Ross Gerber, a longtime Musk supporter turned critic,
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  estimates that SpaceX would lose half its valuation if it lost
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  access to federal money. The company has built a
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  lucrative commercial business, but it's more consistent and
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  high paying client is still the US government.
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  Any disruption in those contracts would ripple through
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  Musk's entire operation from * lake expansion to Starship
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  development. Gerber also warned that Musk's
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  current behavior is damaging relationships with regulators
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  and customers. He reduced his Tesla stake last
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  week. Suddenly that he called Musk
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  self-destructive leadership style.
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  And I don't know if you remember this, but at the beginning of
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  Starship development, the FAA and SpaceX were always kind of
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  at odds. SpaceX would be done with a part
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  of the mission so they could fly the actual ship, but it would
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  take the FAA months to regulate that one launch and they went
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  through numerous cycles of a Starship in one go from the FAA.
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  So if anything happens with this administration to slow down
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  Starship development, that means that SpaceX and NASA won't be
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  getting astronauts to the moon anytime soon if they delay
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  Starships. Now, let me let me back this up
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  a little bit. SpaceX will need to test 100
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  Starships before they get to the moon.
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  They need to be able to refuel in orbit.
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  They need to be able to orbit the Earth properly.
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  They need to be able to get a Starship to the moon, land it on
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  the moon, and then take off from the moon into lunar orbit, where
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  they will meet up with another craft and that craft will take
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  the astronauts back down to Earth.
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  Now, if they're slowed down, Spacex's Lander, the lunar
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  Starship, the HLS contract Starship is slowed down in
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  development cycle. This means that SpaceX probably
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  won't get to the moon in the next 6-7 years, and that's not a
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  good thing. SpaceX is on flight 10, next of
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  Starship. The last three flights have been
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  a disaster. There has been explosions of the
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  ship for the last three ship flights.
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  The booster exploded last time because they were pushing it
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  towards its limits and they pushed it past the limits, which
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  was kind of expected. But the ship, they thought they
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  had everything fixed, but apparently either something else
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  was wrong or they didn't have the same problem fixed and the
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  thing exploded. So right now SpaceX is trying to
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  get back into the cycle of actually testing the ships in
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  orbit so they can eventually send it or sorry sorry to
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  orbital velocity until someday they will make Starship in
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  orbit, place it in orbit and they'll orbit the earth a few
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  times and come back down in the ocean probably.
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  So if they can succeed in the next few missions, I can see
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  that happening in the next within the next 5 missions.
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  They are also want to do a star link drop off in space and if
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  they get that done, that's a huge step as well because then
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  they can launch Starships and Starlinks at the same time, make
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  money from the Starlinks and also test Starships at the same
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  time. So when SpaceX is going to do
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  the next round of testing after ship, after the flight 10,
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  flight 11, flight 12, flight 13, we're expecting bigger things
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  from them, more kind of experimental things from them,
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  because right now they just have to make it to orbital velocity
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  and make it back down to the Indian Ocean.
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  But you know, it's not just about SpaceX or Tesla must has a
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  hands and a lot of things, XAI and brain tech from Neuralink
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  also depend on clear pathways through highly regulated,
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  regulated sectors. X AI competes directly with Open
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  AI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind, and all of which have
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  relationships in Washington and teams focused on policy
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  compliance. All of those people in those
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  companies, they're kind of quiet, unlike Elon Musk who
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  likes to speak his mind and likes to be a free speech
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  absolutist. Of course, on X, where he can
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  say anything he wants without repercussions until there are
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  repercussions, and Neurolink, which works on brain computer
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  interfaces, must secure approvals from the Food and Drug
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  Administration and maintain trust with medical institutions,
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  Any perception of political instability at the top of Musk's
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  empire could delay approvals or dry up strategic partnerships.
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  Now, as those sectors mature, though, policy risks will rise
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  because they're going to be doing more invasive and higher
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  tier things, so the policy risks will not fall.
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  And Trump's campaign aligned closely with Musk throughout
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  2023 and early 2024. And Trump appointed Musk to Lee
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  Doge, which is an economic advisory panel, and he's invited
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  him to many of his events, invited him to Mar a Lago.
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  Tesla was featured prominently during a March White House event
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  celebrating electric vehicles. Trump personally test drove one
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  of the company's red model wise and.
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  He still has it at the White House, he says.
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  He's not getting rid of it. The public embrace stood in
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  stark contrast to the Biden administration, which
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  consistently excluded Tesla from clean energy events.
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  Now, the change gave Musk and his company's rear inside track.
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  But that track now looks far more precarious.
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  But it also looks like Elon and Trump may be making up.
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  We're going to keep you abreast of that situation of the few
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  days coming forward. And Musk's original plan was to
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  gain access, reduce regulation and redirect subsidies towards
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  his businesses. And that that unraveled current
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  public feud has not only raised billions in market value for
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  harder, hard working people that earn that money to invest in his
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  companies and invest in Elon. Now this is the person that once
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  walked into Washington as a kingmaker, and now he faces
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  potential retaliation from the same system that he tried to
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  game. Hey, thank you so much for
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  listening today, I really do. Appreciate your support if.
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  You could take a second and hit. This subscribe.
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  listening on, right? Now I.
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  yourselves and each other, and I'll see you tomorrow.