Musk's Business Empire Strained By Political Feuds, Bets

Bloomberg's Max Chafkin breaks down the challenges facing Elon Musk's businesses as his personal antics weigh against earnings potential.

The black eye was easier to miss than it should have been. Perhaps it was the shadow cast by his DOGE cap, or because he was rolling his neck as if he’d just received the world’s most relaxing massage, or because everyone was paying attention to Donald Trump. Maybe it was all of those things. In any case, it took 40 minutes before someone asked the obvious question: What happened to Elon Musk’s face?

Musk blamed a parenting mishap. “I said, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face,’ and he did,” he said, referring to his 5-year-old son, X. “I didn’t really feel much at the time. And then I guess it bruises up.”

The explanation, which came on May 30 during what was supposed to be Musk’s Oval Office send-off, was reassuring for anyone concerned about Musk’s well-being. Earlier that day, the New York Times had published a report, denied by Musk, in which anonymous sources suggested that his use of psychedelic drugs was contributing to a pattern of erratic behavior. On the other hand, Musk’s roughhousing suggested a metaphor for his brief and chaotic tenure in presidential politics. The richest man in the world was leaving the White House with a self-inflicted physical injury and, perhaps, a few psychic ones.

It was about to get much worse. Soon enough, he’d find himself and his business interests firmly in Trump’s crosshairs—and losing altitude.

Musk had started his stint in the second Trump administration as close to the top of the world as any centibillionaire can be. He appointed himself head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting effort that made him briefly one of the most powerful people in Washington and provided the backdrop for a surreal kind of political performance art. He stalked around the Oval Office as if it were his personal domain. He taunted civil servants, cut funding to food banks, boasted about sending entire federal agencies “into the wood chipper.” He demanded access to sensitive military plans and troves of personal data, and received much of it. World leaders, eager to please Trump, granted licenses to Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, and advertisers who’d backed away from Musk’s social network after his various antisemitic outbursts began buying ads on X again. The market value of Tesla Inc. soared, as did the values of Musk’s privately held companies, including SpaceX and xAI, which both began raising money.

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