What Elon Musk Has to Lose by Breaking Up With Donald Trump
Elon Musk's companies have long been among the largest beneficiaries of government funding. If he were to end them for good, Donald Trump would deal the billionaire a severe blow. But Elon Musk has no shortage of weapons to defend himself, the American press argues.
“The easiest way to save billions and billions of dollars in our budget is to end the government subsidies and contracts that Elon Musk benefits from.” On June 5, on his network, Truth Social, Donald Trump responded sharply to his former advisor’s criticism of the US government’s “great, beautiful budget bill.”
A threat immediately taken seriously by investors. Hence the instant plunge in Tesla's stock on the New York Stock Exchange. "The biggest single-day drop in the electric car maker's stock price ever recorded," notes the Financial Times . The group's shares closed down more than 14%, wiping out $153 billion (€133.8 billion) of market capitalization in one fell swoop. "That's more than it would take to buy up all the shares of Starbucks and hundreds of other major US publicly traded companies," points out The Washington Post .
What scares the markets? That the billionaire's feud with Donald Trump will end up harming the companies he runs. They fear, for example, that Trump is no longer in such a hurry to promote the development of cars.
Courrier International
