Billionaire and tech company owner Ilon Musk wrote on Wednesday, June 11, that he regrets some of his social media X posts against U.S. President Donald Trump last week. «I went too far,» confessed Musk on his page.
At issue is the stormy public conflict between the recent allies, which erupted on June 5 after Musk criticized a bill proposing to eliminate tax breaks for the purchase of electric cars, and Trump responded by saying he was «very disappointed in Ilon.» This turned into a multi-hour confrontation on social networks with mutual accusations and threats: among other things, the president hinted that he might terminate government contracts with Musk's companies, and Musk said that his SpaceX would decommission the Dragon spacecraft - the only means used in the United States to transport astronauts to the ISS and back to Earth. The entrepreneur later retracted that warning, however, and by the weekend had deleted some of his social media posts. On Monday, Trump said he plans to keep Starlink Technology, a satellite internet service that is part of SpaceX, in the White House.
The capitalization of Musk s only publicly traded company, automaker Tesla, plunged more than 14% on a day of escalation on June 5, losing more than $150 billion, making it the worst day for Tesla stock in its history, wrote MarketWatch. The billionaire's own fortune dropped by $34 billion in a single day, Bloomberg estimated.
However, the quotations recovered during the three trading sessions after the collapse. At the pre-market on June 11, they jumped up by 3%.
Morgan Stanley analysts suggested the day before that Trump's attack was part of some sort of grand strategy, writes MarketWatch. The investment bank is currently promoting a $5 billion loan for Musk's AI startup xAI, and has had difficulty building a pool of investors - following the entrepreneur's falling out with the president.
«Remember the general disbelief when Ilon Musk bought the social network [Twitter, now X] a few years ago? And the annoyance when he so defiantly started getting involved in politics? Repetitive pattern analysis suggests that investors may once again be underestimating how far Musk is willing to go and how much he can withstand criticism and financial losses,» the analysts wrote.
That the whole thing may have been partially planned has not excluded Katie Wood, founder of investment firm ARK Invest and a longtime Tesla supporter.
