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One of the biggest one-day declines in history: Elon Musk lost $34 billion after a public spat with Donald Trump.
SpaceX ceases cooperation with the US government, Tesla collapses on the stock exchange, and even Jeffrey Epstein’s name appears in the case.
On Thursday, 5 June, Elon Musk’s fortune fell by a record $34 billion, one of the biggest one-day losses among American CEOs, Bloomberg reports. The reason for this is the fall of Tesla shares by more than 14%, which was the result of a public conflict between Musk and Donald Trump.
At first, Musk harshly criticised the new budget bill agreed by Republicans and the Trump administration, which deprives Tesla of tax breaks. But then he got personal: he accused Trump of having ties to financier and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. This caused a shock in the US political establishment.
In response, Trump’s team called Musk’s words an “unfortunate episode” and threatened to cancel federal contracts for the billionaire’s companies, including SpaceX. He also promised to immediately decommission the Dragon space capsule that serves the International Space Station.
This conflict has already cost Musk more than a high-profile tweet in 2021, when he lost $50 billion after a public poll to sell 10% of Tesla shares – but then the losses stretched over several days, and now everything happened in one day.
Even after the crash, Musk’s personal wealth remains enormous – $335 billion, making him the richest man in the world. Mark Zuckerberg is in second place with $241 billion.
The US has already mentioned Musk’s legal battle with the SEC: his restrictions on publications about Tesla are still in effect, after tweets about buying back shares at $420 in 2018. Musk unsuccessfully tried to overturn this restriction even in the Supreme Court.
