Tesla Loses $152 Billion as Musk-Trump Rift Escalates Over Spending Bill

Washington D.C. – Shares of Tesla plunged 14% on Thursday, wiping $152 billion from the electric vehicle maker’s market value in a single day, amid a deepening feud between CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. The selloff marks Tesla’s steepest one-day market cap loss in its history and follows an increasingly bitter public dispute over the administration’s sweeping new spending bill.

The political clash has sent Tesla’s stock tumbling below the trillion-dollar threshold, closing at $916 billion, and capped off a volatile week in which shares slid nearly 18%. Despite a rally in May, Tesla is down almost 30% this year, with investor confidence shaken by faltering sales and a growing list of challenges, from regulatory scrutiny to rising competition.

At the center of the financial fallout is Musk’s rejection of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a massive legislative package that extends Trump’s signature 2017 tax cuts, boosts military and border security spending, and pares back social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would add $3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

Musk, who had previously served as head of the Trump administration’s short-lived Department of Government Efficiency, has launched a sustained attack on the bill, calling it “a disgusting abomination” and accusing Trump of betraying fiscal conservatives. His criticism has grown more personal in recent days, culminating in explosive social media posts accusing Trump of “ingratitude” for his past political support and even implying the president’s name appears in sealed Jeffrey Epstein documents.

Trump responded Thursday with characteristically pointed remarks from the Oval Office. “Elon was wearing thin,” he said. “I asked him to leave. I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody wanted, and he just went crazy.”

Though Musk has long positioned himself as a political outsider, his once-cooperative relationship with Trump appears to have unraveled completely. The president accused Musk of being primarily upset about the removal of electric vehicle tax credits from the bill—an accusation Musk denied in real time on X, formerly Twitter. “False,” he posted. “This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night.”

Musk, who also runs SpaceX and xAI, has been especially vocal in opposing not only the bill but also Trump’s tariff policies, predicting they could trigger a recession later this year. He also voiced support for calls to impeach Trump and replace him with Vice President JD Vance, a move that further distanced him from the White House.

The fallout extends beyond political theater. Tesla now faces real operational pressures, including lagging EV sales in Europe and a delayed rollout of its much-touted driverless ride-hailing service in Austin, where rival Waymo already operates commercially. At the same time, the collapse of Jared Isaacman’s nomination to head NASA—a Musk ally and SpaceX investor—has added further strain.

As the bill heads to the Senate with resistance from a small bloc of Republican fiscal hawks, the relationship between two of the GOP’s most influential figures has veered from alliance to open hostility—shaking markets and raising questions about the future of the administration’s tech agenda.