Does Musk-Trump spat blow a hole in Tesla bull case?

I SPOKE almost a year ago to Mark Spiegel of Stanphyl Capital in New York. He said it was just a matter of time before Musk and Trump fell out - the only question was who would shaft who first, but his view was that sooner or later everyone 'gets Musked.

- NEIL WILSON

An ugly, name-calling, chest-thumping public brawl on Twitter between the richest guy in the world and the most powerful guy in the world - it's what the platform was made for. It's also whacked Tesla stock as bulls need to reassess their upside case for the carmaker.

Both probably realise that this is doing each of them a lot of harm - Musk could lose billions of dollars in government contracts and tax credits, while Trump could see his "big beautiful bill" fail to pass.

They are going to cool off a bit and talk things over. But in the words of Anchorman, boy, that escalated quickly! Selling in Tesla was HEAVY, with $153bn wiped out in one day. There is a whole cluster of related items here we saw the likes of Palantir also hit hard, down almost 8%. Tesla, though, is coming back in pre-market trade. BTD is ever present. To summarise where we are Musk has been criticising the tax and spending bill all week, which prompted Trump to talk about his disappointment with his 'former' ally.

Musk then went full tweetstorm and launched a series of attacks on X, suggesting that Trump appears in unreleased files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump shot back, saying Musk "went CRAZY" and was asked to leave the administration, while he also threatened to cut government contracts with Musk's companies. Tesla's stock price dropped 14%.