Musk may not recover from the harm inflicted by Trump

One moment, you are the richest person in the world, a genius, a self-proclaimed "techno-king", able to dock a returning space rocket as if it were a car.

- CHRIS BLACKHURST

The next? You have protesters boycotting your products, and your company's stock price is crashing.

Suddenly, Elon Musk, a genuine claimant to be a master of the universe, appears decidedly human, even ordinary. Thinking he could easily add a role in Donald Trump's administration to his existing positions, Musk's plight is the result of hubris, or, to point to an ancient legend that, given his interest in galactic travel, he must know backwards, he is a 21st-century Icarus. He flew too close to the sun because he thought it could do no harm, and now he has plummeted to earth.

He paid $250m towards the Trump campaign. Loose change for the billionaire, but enough to gain the new president's ear and favour. Musk impressed on his new bestie, he was the "First Buddy", that he could take an axe to the US federal budget, cutting out waste and with it a large amount of wokery, spectacularly boosting the books. It has not happened. Musk was responsible for thousands of firings, but his brutal purging has barely dented the public outlay. In the process, he became a hate figure, a pin-up for the laissez-faire, devil-may-care attitude of his boss. With that, too, came the stomaching of the rest of Trumpian ideology, which went against his own business needs.

Musk's Tesla cars rely on parts and materials supplied from overseas. Trump skewered the industry and its dependence on globally entwined supply chains by imposing heavy tariffs. They are electric, and Trump is a four-square fossil fuel advocate.

As far as Trump is concerned, the climate crisis belongs with the liberal intelligentsia he so abhors, so he wishes to remove tax credits for electric vehicles. Likewise, Musk wants to harvest the world's best scientific brains, regardless of their origin. Trump cracked down on immigration and the awarding of visas.