Elon Musk has expressed contrition for some of his tweets about Donald Trump last week, in an apparent effort to retreat from an explosive falling out that has threatened to damage the Tesla boss’s business interests.
Musk was by far the biggest donor to Trump’s presidential campaign, but tensions between the two erupted into public view last week and rapidly escalated, as the world’s richest man called for the president’s impeachment and mocked his connections to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a series of posts.
On Tuesday, Musk posted on X, the social network he owns: “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”
The possibility of a rapprochement – however superficial – appeared to be welcomed by investors. Tesla’s share price rose by 2.6% in pre-market trading.
The public feud was one of the most extraordinary turns in the relationship between the two men. During the presidential campaign they had claimed to be ideological allies, and Musk briefly served in Trump’s government as head of the so-called “department of government efficiency”, a drive to slash government programmes nicknamed “Doge” after the internet meme. Experts have argued that the cost-cutting is illegal.
However, relations quickly soured after Musk publicly criticised Trump’s “big beautiful bill”, saying it would add $2.4tn to US government borrowing and calling it a “disgusting abomination”.
Trump had responded to Musk’s barrage of criticism by saying the tech billionaire “went crazy”. However, the president also made direct references to Musk’s companies, highlighting the potential financial risks of the feud.
In a direct reference to Tesla, Trump wrote on Truth Social, his own social media network: “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted.” The electric car pioneer has been struggling with falling sales in some markets, including much of Europe, in part, analysts say, because of Musk’s allegiance with Trump.
Musk’s alignment with the US president had prompted a surge in the market value of Tesla, with investors hoping that the White House would look more favourably at the company’s autonomous driving technology. Musk’s retreat from the feud came a day before Tesla’s launch of a “robotaxi” service in Austin, Texas. That launch is seen as crucial for the company to justify its position as the world’s most valuable carmaker even as it struggles with an ageing lineup of products.
Trump also threatened another of Musk’s key businesses, the rocket company SpaceX. Trump wrote: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”
In practice the US government is unlikely to cancel SpaceX’s contracts, as it carries out more strategically important satellite launches than every other company in the world combined. Musk at first threatened to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, the key vehicle to transport Nasa astronauts to the International Space Station, before withdrawing the threat.