South African-born billionaire Elon Musk has faced a significant financial setback, losing about $27 billion from his net worth after a dramatic drop in the stock of Tesla, his electric vehicle manufacturing company.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Tesla’s share price dropped by 14 per cent overnight, erasing $150 billion in market value. The financial fall is coming at a time when the U.S. President and Elon Musk publicly traded insults on their respective social media platforms, Truth Social and X.
However, Musk remains the world’s richest individual, with an estimated net worth of $388 billion despite the loss. According to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s wealth remains substantially ahead of the second-ranked Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth stands at $236 billion. President Donald Trump, whose net worth is estimated at $5.4 billion, is at No. 689 on the Forbes ranking.
In the ongoing clash, which has seen a couple of global reactions, Elon Musk said on Thursday that SpaceX will decommission its Dragon spacecraft. It comes after Donald Trump’s statement on the cancellation of Musk’s government contracts and subsidies.
The SpaceX CEO included a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social Post, which described the termination of Musk’s government contracts as the easiest way to save money in its Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars.
“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Elon Musk said.
About $22 billion of SpaceX’s government contracts are at risk, and multiple U.S. space programs could face dramatic changes.
SpaceX’s Dragon spaceships are used to transport the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts and supplies to and from the International Space Station. Following the decommissioning, NASA press secretary, Bethany Stevens, explained that the agency will continue to execute upon the President’s vision for the future of space and continue to work with industry partners.
Also Read: Trump’s Epstein ties resurface as Elon Musk fuels conspiracy on X.
The feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk
President Trump and Elon Musk enjoyed a cordial relationship before and after the former’s election. However, the disagreement started about a week ago. This was rooted in Musk’s criticism of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, a legislation that proposes tax cuts and government removal of subsidies, particularly in electric vehicles.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” is a 1,038-page piece of legislation that was passed on May 22 by the U.S. House of Representatives. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that while the bill will cut taxes by $3.7 trillion, it will increase the national debt by $2.4 trillion over 10 years and raise the country’s debt ceiling by $4 trillion.
When Musk confirmed his departure from DOGE, he expressed his disappointment with Trump’s budget bill, which proposes multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks and a boost to defence spending, stating that the big, beautiful bill, as Trump calls it, would increase the federal deficit and undermine the work of DOGE.
“I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful. But I don’t know if it could be both,” Musk said.
In response, Trump claimed that Musk was deeply familiar with his plans for the bill but backed off when he learned it would negatively impact his business.
“He only developed a problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate….That’s billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said, while referring to policies that incentivise the production and sale of electric vehicles, like those of Tesla.
In a rebuttal, Elon Musk claimed that Trump only won the election because of his help. “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk said on X.
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