“Epic disaster”: Trump-Musk war that wiped $150 billion off Tesla’s value

Tesla share value is recovering, slightly, from the latest round of headwinds caused by its most prominent face, Elon Musk. The billionaire had a falling out with President Donald Trump after his position at the front of DOGE was not extended.

On Thursday this week, Trump finally spoke out about Musk deeming the president’s signature legislation, the ‘one big, beautiful bill’, a “disgusting abomination,” along with calling for lawmakers to “kill the bill.” It quickly devolved into an infantile spectacle that sent Tesla shares tumbling yet again.

$150 billion wiped off Tesla’s value

Investors that were on the prowl to take advantage of any blowup between the most powerful man in the world as US president and the world’s richest man made out like bandits, bagging $4 billion, when the bromance disintegrated. The very public row between the two that played out on each other’s social media platforms drove Tesla’s stock down 14.3% on Thursday, translating to a loss of around $150 billion in market value.

“This is a disaster of epic proportion for Tesla and SpaceX,” said Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, speaking to Yahoo Finance.

This is just the latest bad spell for the share value of what was once the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer whose value is down over 40% from its peak. The CEO’s venture into the political landscape, while initially boosting the company’s stock, has in the end caused shareholders numerous headaches.

Musk goes to Washington

Musk decided to dive head into US politics in the 2024 US presidential campaign. He bankrolled the Donald Trump and the Republican party to the tune of between roughly $250 and $290 million dollars, pocket change for the world’s richest man.

That largesse softened Trump’s tone on the tech billionaire and even got him an office in the West Wing to carry out a project he had proposed, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Musk and his minions went to work gutting, literally, agencies across the federal government firing staff, eliminating departments and cancelling programs to help the sick and hungry. As well as those to keep nuclear weapons safe and deadly diseases under control.

The ‘throw in all in the wood chipper’ strategy without a second thought required the federal government to rush to undo some of the pseudo-federal agency’s work and rehire in haste improperly fired federal staff, if they could be found. Likewise, not surprisingly, it didn’t go over well with the public.

Tesla cars were vandalized, and Tesla dealerships became the focal point for protests against the billionaire’s pet project to reshape American government. Sales of Tesla cars began to plummet and the value of shares in the electric vehicle’s nosedived.

How much efficiency did Elon Musk achieve?

Musk claimed that he could wipe $2 trillion from government expenses before getting into the weeds. He later had to downgrade the “waste” cutting goal by half and in the end his brainchild had only reduced government spending by $175 billion according to DOGE’s own figures.

However, that doesn’t take into account the at least $135 billion that his agency has cost the government, so far, through misguided cuts, where thousands of federal employees were fired and then had to be rehired, inefficiencies they created through there efforts nor the legal bills to fight lawsuits for the illegal actions DOGE took. That is a source of expenses that could still grow further erasing any “cost cutting inefficiencies” the pseudo-agency says it did away with and any potential $5,000 DOGE rebate checks to American taxpayers.

Take for example the Institute of Peace which DOGE employees illegally took over according to a recent court ruling. DOGE raided the independent organization, which was established during Ronald Regan’s administration, using a master key from the security company tasked with protecting it and then called in law enforcement when employees refused to leave.

They ransacked the building, destroying its databases and shredded documents. Then they left the building for two months with rotting food inside, not allowing anybody in to clean up, which attracted rats and cockroaches.

When USIP staff were finally allowed back in, besides the growing vermin population, they found that among the damage in the building there were water leaks and ceiling panels missing. As well, there was graffiti and marijuana was found in the garbage.

“These things can turn into major, $100,000-plus repairs for lack of maintenance,” USIP chief of security Colin O’Brien told The Independent. “Now we’re in a rush to play catchup.”

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