Trump Targets Musk’s Empire As Tesla Stock Tanks Hard

Donald Trump and Elon Musk seemed like a match made in heaven as they’re both rich, egotistical billionaires that crave attention. However, they both have thin skin, a questionable definition of the truth, and a tendency to retaliate.

The latter three characteristics are now on full display as their bromance has ended in a rather public fight. Musk got the ball rolling by attacking Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill as a “disgusting abomination.” He went on to call it a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” … that “contains the largest increase in the debt ceiling in US history!”

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Musk described it as the “Debt Slavery Bill” and urged Congress to kill it. He also told his 220 million followers on X to call their legislators as “bankrupting America is NOT ok!”

President Trump was initially quiet on the criticism, but he tore into Musk today. In a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump claimed he asked Elon to leave his administration as he was “wearing thin.” Trump also said Musk went “CRAZY” after “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted.”

Trump then made a not so subtle threat, despite claiming “I don’t mind Elon turning against me.” In particular, he said the “easiest way to save money … is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts.”

That’s a rather blatant threat of retaliation and Wall Street appears to be taking it seriously. Tesla stock plummeted 14.27% today to close down $47.37 per share at $284.68.

In response to Trump’s threat, Musk said SpaceX will “begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.” This would effectively leave NASA up a creek without a paddle, although they could use Boeing’s troubled Starliner.

Aside from that, Musk said Trump is “in the Epstein files” and claimed “that is the real reason they have not been made public.” He went on to suggest Trump’s tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.

The mudslinging will likely continue for the foreseeable future, although it will be interesting to see if the two can mend fences. If not, Tesla could have just added to its increasingly complex set of challenges.