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'Cooler Heads Will Prevail' in Trump, Musk Fight Says Fmr. Gov. Sununu
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June 6, 2025
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7:56Now PlayingFormer New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu weighs in on the fight between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump and why he believes Musk is right about the looming economic impact of the 'Big Beautiful Bill'
What began as Elon Musk’s embrace of right-wing populism has become a defining — and potentially harmful — chapter in his business career.
By endorsing Donald Trump’s MAGA movement and far-right parties in Europe, Musk alienated a big portion of his original customer base, eroding Tesla’s brand, sales and market share around the globe. Then came this week’s rupture: a personal and public breakup with Trump that prompted threats of retaliation from a man with control over the world’s most powerful government.
By simultaneously burning bridges with both his customers and now the political movement he funded and amplified for months, Musk now faces a rare convergence of threats: collapsing brand loyalty, shaky revenues, and mounting legal and regulatory risk.
Tesla Inc.’s sales are already stumbling under the weight of partisan baggage. SpaceX, long seen as a strategic national asset, is facing new scrutiny as political winds shift. And the green shoots at X — Musk’s $44 billion “free speech” experiment— that were fueled by Musk’s proximity to the White House and the ad dollars that followed, may soon disappear.
“Elon isn’t functioning to the benefit of his shareholders,” said Ross Gerber, the chief executive officer of Tesla shareholder Gerber Kawasaki, which has been reducing its Tesla holdings over the last few years.
Speaking on Bloomberg Television on Thursday while the meltdown was still going on, Gerber said Musk’s behavior is leading to the “dismantling of the Musk empire in real time.”
With enemies on both flanks, Musk finds himself at the center of a storm fueled by consumer revolt and political hostility.
“Nobody on the right is gonna buy a Tesla, nobody on the left is gonna buy a Tesla. Elon is a man without a country,” said Steve Bannon, an outside adviser to Trump who has long been critical of Musk, in an interview.
Bannon says he is “in continual conversations at the most senior levels” of the Trump administration to push them to revoke Musk’s security clearance and use the Defense Production Act to seize SpaceX and Starlink on grounds they’re vital to US national security.
Even if Trump doesn’t take such extreme measures, there is no shortage of retaliatory options for the White House. The president could try to wield the power of agencies like the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration to inflict real harm — or even just incessant regulatory morass — onto all of Musk’s businesses and the source of his wealth.
In just one day, the Musk-Trump spat shaved $34 billion from his personal net worth, the second-largest loss ever in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the 500 wealthiest people on the planet. The only bigger wealth hit: his own wipeout in November 2021. Tesla lost $153 billion of market value on Thursday, with shares reversing course on Friday after Musk began to simmer down.
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