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Feud Between Tesla’s Elon Musk and Trump Escalates
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- 00:00Let’s also talk a little bit about Tesla, because the stock is sputtering after that feud between President Trump and Elon Musk reignited on social media. The president posted that the Tesla CEO gets more subsidies than any human being in history. That post came after Musk bashed Trump’s spending bill, threatening to unseat any lawmakers who support that bill if it’s the last thing he does on this earth. Joining us now with the latest is Bloomberg Tech co-host Ed Ludlow there. So this has been simmering for a while. You think back to the breakup, if you wanted to call it that, about a month ago, it was over these issues. Yeah, June 4th, fifth and sixth on the subsidies issue. Bloomberg at the time that week of first week of June, calculated it’s not just subsidies, but subsidies, grants and other incentives for about 25 billion. The New York Times has subsequently said across all of e-learning, but it’s predominantly Tesla and SpaceX X, it’s a number nearer to 40 billion. The main sort of point of tension here is that what we used to call the Trump trade in the context of Tesla. That was a boost to the stock prior to the election in November and at points in the first half of the year where the president’s commentary supported the idea that Musk’s close alignment to the stock would support its broader objectives is kind of reverse. The Trump trade is now very difficult for Tesla. But again, it’s a little bit of of the president said, Musk said. And with the point of the big beautiful bill you just went through, Tyler, Elon Musk has at least been consistent that he’s welcomed scrapping incentives for direct to consumer incentives for Tesla because he feels that Tesla’s lower cost base makes it more competitive against other American carmakers. In terms of this fight, though, it does look like. The super genius who started Tesla is being outsmarted by President Trump. He caved in and pulled back his. Epstein, which had to be his trump card, write his Epstein accusations early. Although his stock is still worth, you know, $1,000,000,000,000. Yeah, there were essentially three claims from the president this morning outside of the White House, right? The first was he was asked a question by a journalist, Would you look at deporting Elon Musk? And the president answered in the affirmative. I would point out that Musk has spoken in interviews over about a 20 year period, but he was also in the 2023 biography by Walter Isaacson that Musk is a US citizen and claimed he took the oath of citizenship in 2002 in Los Angeles County. The president also said he would look at doge and doge, turning back on Elon Musk and reviewing those federal contracts and subsidies we just discussed. But the kind of core thing here is ideological. Musk has been consistent. He believes that he’s worried about the national debt pile and not worried about EV incentives that benefit Tesla. The president says the opposite, that Musk is upset about scrapping direct to consumer incentives and that you will also have seen headlines from Treasury Secretary Bessant this morning where he I’m paraphrasing, but essentially says musk is really good at rockets. Leave the finances to me. But that that is the point of tension that is still there. And as Katy pointed out, has been did they actually get into a fistfight that was, I mean, reported or that was a rumor that I saw on social read social media. Has your reporting uncovered any truth behind that claim? Well, my reporting has very clearly reflected that Cabinet members had real problems, not just with Musk on an ideological basis, but just operationally within the wings of the White House, in that he had access to the president and advised him on X and X, Y, Z, and then, you know, other Cabinet members would have a point of difference with the president. What we did report, if you take the case study of Jared Isaacman and his nomination for NASA administrator being pulled when Elon musk left doge. Various White House officials. Sergio Gore is one of the ones we named that were very anti Elon basically moved quickly to say Jared Isaacman is a close ally and confidant of Elon Musk, a historic business partner of his. We don’t want him to run NASA’s. So they move to to convince the president based on his historic Democratic affiliations that he should pull the nomination. There are other examples about that. I get that in that example said your goal is not. You guys see the red head. Sorry, we just broke that while we’re on air. Well, it’s just a story. Yes. Sorry. There’s a lot going on this morning. Sources tell us, my colleagues and I, that what has happened in the last seven days is Musk has gone back into Tesla and after Omi Dash official was essentially fired, Musk is now overseeing sales. So all of this sales operatives that had reported in to homemade. Elon now has direct oversight. And what sources tell us is the reason that’s important is we obviously get sales data this week globally. I think it will come in the next couple of days, but Europe’s particularly troublesome right now. Elon Musk is now directly overseeing sales responsibility for the United States or North America and Europe. And what I’m also hearing from sources and my colleagues have reported with me is that Tom Xu, who runs the Asia business out of Shanghai, now will oversee global manufacturing operations. So this is kind of idiosyncratic to Tesla and what’s going on inside, but it’s happening. And, you know, Tesla investors will know these names and try and work out who’s steering the ship.
