Why Musk is vulnerable in conflict with Trump

Trisha Thadani and Faiz Siddiqui, (c) 2025 , The Washington Post

Mon, Jun 9, 2025, 9:39 AM 6 min read

In the days after the 2024 election, Elon Musk seemed unstoppable.

After he plowed at least $288 million into helping elect President Donald Trump and other Republicans, the payoff for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was immediate. Tesla’s stock soared, making the world’s richest man even richer. His influence in Washington was incomparable, and government support for his ambitions - whether launching spaceships to Mars or autonomous cars across America - seemed more plausible than ever.

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Now, all of that could be in doubt.

The spectacular public feud last week between Musk and Trump has laid bare just how much Musk may lose if their rocky relationship continues to unravel. While Trump and the GOP have benefited from Musk’s money, Musk is most vulnerable if the president uses the levers of government to retaliate - a prospect the president raised in a message last week threatening to cancel Musk’s companies’ federal contracts.

“It will come down to how much pain does Trump want to inflict,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Deepwater Asset Management.

Over the weekend, Musk appeared to take a step to de-escalate by deleting some of his most acrimonious messages on X about Trump. While Trump has resisted going all-out in clashing with his former ally, on Saturday he threatened “very serious consequences” against Musk if he were to back Democrats. Musk hasn’t said he would do that but suggested he would like to found a new political party.

A Washington Post analysis this year found that the billionaire and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits over the years.

The assistance, The Post found, helped catapult Musk into becoming the richest person in the world. According to Bloomberg, the public feud erased $34 billion from Musk’s personal net worth, the second-largest loss ever in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the 500 wealthiest people in the world.

Musk and Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Tesla - the electric car company that has been the biggest source of Musk’s wealth as its stock price soared in recent years - has been under pressure as its chief executive has spent time in politics, particularly in overseeing the U.S. DOGE Service. The company’s shares are down more than 20 percent year-to-date, falling precipitously Thursday as the verbal warfare between Trump and Musk escalated before slightly rebounding Friday.