PULSE POINTS:
❓What Happened: Tesla saw its shares fall eight percent on Thursday after Elon Musk authored a series of erratic posts on X critical of President Donald J. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” working its way through Congress, while claiming credit for Republican victories in the 2024 election.
👥 Who’s Involved: Elon Musk, President Trump, and Tesla.
📍 Where & When: Musk made the posts on Thursday, June 5, 2025.
💬 Key Quote: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote on X, adding: “Such ingratitude.”
⚠️ Impact: A political falling out between Trump and Musk could pose significant problems for the Tesla chief’s business interests, with his prior support for the America First leader having already alienated many liberals.
IN FULL:
Tesla shares plunged eight percent Thursday afternoon as the electric vehicle company’s CEO, Elon Musk, authored a series of erratic posts on his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), attacking President Donald J. Trump and taking credit for his 2024 election victory. “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote, adding: “Such ingratitude.”
In another bizarre post, Musk appears to assert that he should have reviewed the reconciliation bill before it was voted on. Responding to Trump’s assertion that the former DOGE leader was keyed in on the critical details of the bill, Musk wrote: “False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!”
After leaving his role as an advisor in the Trump White House and frontman for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the end of May, Musk almost immediately began attacking the budget reconciliation bill enacting much of Trump’s agenda that is currently moving through Congress. The attacks drew a response from President Trump on Thursday, with the America First leader telling press in the Oval Office, “I’m very disappointed in Elon; I’ve helped Elon a lot.” Trump noted Musk has not “said [anything] bad about me, personally,” but predicted, accurately, that he was “sure that’ll be next.”
Musk has repeatedly claimed the bill will drastically increase deficits, plunging the federal government further into debt. However, the Trump White House argues that it actually achieves substantial spending cuts, which, when combined with Trump’s tariffs and deregulation agenda, will reduce the deficit by $6.6 trillion over the next decade.
In one of his posts, Musk, 53, threatened Republicans, “Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years…”
Such ingratitude
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025