The public fallout between Elon Musk and President Trump on Thursday resulted in a big hit to Tesla’s stock price — and Musk’s net worth. The world’s richest man is as of now $26.6 billion less rich than he was yesterday, according to Forbes’ real time Billionaires tracker.
Musk will not be needing to add another job to his plate anytime soon, though; he is still worth $380.3 billion as of Thursday afternoon, and he is nearly $150 billion richer than the next person behind him, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The big drop in Musk’s net worth came as Tesla’s stock price took its second biggest hit since COVID-19 pandemic rocked the market in 2020, with shares of the electric car company dropping 14.26% on Thursday. Tesla closed the day at $284.70 per share, down more than 20% than where it was a week ago.
Thursday’s plunge coincided with Musk and Trump trading barbs on social media and in the press. The Tesla and SpaceX boss has been highly critical of the president’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” calling it a “disgusting abomination” earlier this week; the president weighed in on Musk’s criticism on Thursday, telling reporters at the White House he was “very disappointed” with Musk.
Things escalated quickly from there, with Musk posting on X, the social media platform he owns, that the president would not have won the 2024 election without his support. Trump responded on his own social platform, Truth Social, saying Musk had been “wearing thin” and that he asked him to leave his post as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
The president also said the “easiest way” to slice government spending would be to “terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts” with SpaceX. Soon after, Musk said the Epstein Files had not been released because Trump was named in them.
Thursday’s fallout comes less than a week after President Trump gave Musk a warm farewell from the Oval Office, including presenting him with a gold key to the White House. The president, during a joint press conference last week, called Musk an “incredible patriot” for the work he did with DOGE.
